


Stay The Night

by Write_like_an_American



Series: Stay the Night (and Every Morning After) [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Kraglin Whump, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Nightmares, Oral Sex, Past Rape/Non-con, Switching, Topping from the Bottom, Yet another how-they-got-together fic, Yondu Whump, Yondu ain't dying, Yondu really likes being called 'sir', Yondu tries to dad, dom yondu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-02 21:38:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10953222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: In all the years he's known him, fought beside him, and fucked him, Kraglin has never stayed the night.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Based on a kink meme prompt!**

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Kraglin has a very interesting stock meeting**

First time, he thinks nothing of it. Never expected to stay in the first place.

Never expected to be invited back again either, because there are _rules_ about these things: unspoken yet stone-set, rules as hard-and-fast as the motto inscribed in ugly chickenscratch lettering on the arch above the canteen, which the Ravagers walk beneath each morning to collect their breakfast-slops, ducking their head in unthinking reverence.

_Steal from everyone. Not each other._

_Captains don't fuck crew_ doesn't sound so catchy. But, thinks Kraglin as he wanders the _Eclector's_ poorly-lit corridors in the general direction of his dorm, goofy smile on his face and lovebites winding up his neck, it's still got a ring to it. This was a one time treat – his cap'n sprawling over his chair, unzipping, snapping fingers for Kraglin to kneel. Kraglin'll get back to where he belongs. Unclogging gunk from the engines, standing to attention, and thumping his chest whenever a senior Ravager (that's most of them) walks by.

Not much changes. The same rigmarole of jobs, some demeaning and some downright dangerous. The same pats on the back from his coworkers and the same jeers from his overseers and the same occasional noogie from the cap'n, who only pays as much or as little attention to Kraglin as he does to the rest of his motley band.

Kraglin's green in every sense of the word (he's still finding his spacelegs). He figures that being invited to the cap'n's cabin for a one nighter is just Udonta's way of testing the fresh meat. Putting 'em in their place, and all that – Kraglin had certainly spent most of that hour on his knees. He banks it in his long-term memory, sighs to himself at inappropriate moments (and earns odd looks from his coworkers) and occasionally beats off to the fantasy (because how can it be anything else?) of a blue ass twisting on his dick.

Then a stray shell rids the Bridge of a Navigator. And Obfonteri, who can't read a word of Xandarian but who knows the bowels of the _Eclector_ like he knows his grease and oil-stained fingers, is somehow put forwards.

He starts off as a junior. Most of the work involves watching the navs guide the _Eclector_ through asteroid fields and tight-spaced jump points in a full-body dance, each moving atop a holo-deck that spits out a portion of the galaxy to-scale around them.

Kraglin's job is to boot the consoles when the lights flicker, keep a supply of buzzing fully-charged batteries in the crate strapped to his back, and run for caffeine supplements when the navs are working double-shift and their eyes start to droop, as they're piloting the galleon through intricate minefields of comets and cosmic dust.

Kraglin does his job well. Kraglin does his job very well. Kraglin would do his job better, if he didn't keep getting distracted by that same blue ass – which is, unfortunately, clad in skintight leather, and (even more unfortunately) mostly hidden by a swishing trenchcoat as his cap'n marches back and forth. He's barking orders, readying the dogfighter team as they close on the frigate in slow thruster pulses that make the entire galleon thrum. Kraglin ain't high enough up the foodchain to be in-the-know, but he's gleaned from mumbles on the Bridge and whispers at canteen that the ship belongs to a merc stupid enough to rob those who wear the Flame of Ogord.

Ravagers never let a slight go without repayment. Especially not a theft from their own: an offence of the highest order. Kraglin, bony back propped against the out-of-order sign on the depowered nav-plinth, watches Yondu corral his troops with voice and gesture and the occasional bout of cussing.

For five whole minutes, it's almost peaceful. Then:

“All fire on my command!” Kraglin jumps at the sudden boom. It bounces off the solar-coils above, sound blaring on all sides. Yondu's roar is hoarse, like it's a second away from breaking, and when he hollers _“FIRE”,_ Kraglin feels his pants grow traitorously tight.

“Obfonteri!” It takes a second to locate where he is. He had been happy to drift away on a daydream, where Yondu was making noise for different reasons. The nav at the end of the row slams her fist on her screen, whose flickers have gone from sporadic to constant. “Dammit, Obfonteri! Now ain't the time to get stagefright! _Battery,_ I said!”

Oh yeah. If these consoles go down, the Ravager flagship can bid goodbye to its steering.

Fireworks blossom over the central windscreen as the frigate returns the volley, lasers scattering and dissipating across their shields. The flashes cling to the backs of Kraglin's eyelids as he hurries to the dying nav-plinth, pops the dead battery loose of its coil, and slots the next into place. He whips his hands away just in time to avoid the crack of electric. Snaps the maintenance hatch shut, gives the machine's grumbling flank a pat and its driver a thumbs up. The nav doesn't acknowledge him. Kraglin can't hold it against her, not when she's busy amping the forcefields to deflect the worst of the blasts.

Kraglin rushes his battery to the emergency recharging booth in the corner. The actual one's a quarter-mile jog from here. They're in the process of getting one set up closer, but they're in _the process_ of a lot of things right now. Yondu's young, for a cap'n, and Stakar doesn't want to waste big bucks on upgrading his galleon until he's sure the guy ain't gonna be mutinied on within the month.

So here Kraglin is. Wedging crocodile clips on a bare circuit board that's hacked crudely into the ship mainframe, and pinching their other ends to the tiny manual-recharge nib that sticks from the battery's side. The glass fills with a lurid purple gush, lights dancing like a Ravager Funeral. The battery siphons energy direct from the galleon's fusion engines, whose triplicate pulse – _whoomwhoomwhoom, whoomwhoomwhoom –_ beats steadily beneath all of their boots.

Kraglin leaves it there, making a mental note of the time. Five minutes for these babies to juice. Leave 'em a quarter of an hour and they risk exploding and taking out a good chunk of the Bridge with them – but he ain't forgotten one yet, and nor does he plan to. He hurries to the navs, giving a guttering machine a kick as he passes.

And, coincidentally, squeezes by his cap'n. Yondu's striding to examine the flagging aft shield generators.

“Scuse me,” says Kraglin, hunching away so Yondu doesn't have to. Yondu grunts. There's a brief press of warmth. A stick of their leathers, the smell of whisky and radiation and _cap'n_ that soaks Kraglin's synapses for the snatch of time before Yondu passes.

Then it's gone, and they're both back in the fray. Yondu's a thundercloud – when he shouts he damn near swells to fill the Bridge. “Full broadside from the starboard gun ports! On my count! Three!”

Kraglin, having heard this order several times over the last hour, knows what to expect. He retrieves a soldier pill from the pouch sewn into his jacket lining and downs it dry, swallowing several times to work the capsule around the bend of his throat. Then he hunkers down besides the sturdiest looking nav-platform, and wraps a clump of wires around his wrist.

“Two! Brace yerselves, boys...”

Kraglin's ready for it. When Udonta yells “One!” the entire galleon slams sideways as if it's gonna barrel roll, artificial gravity generators straining to calibrate to their new axis and navs scrambling to adjust the thrusters to compensate. Yondu surfs the roll with his legs locked out while Kraglin clings to the console. He keeps his eyes strained open, determined not to miss an instant.

Bright rosettes burst along the frigate's flank. Flames quench almost before they spurt. Kraglin has to imagine the crash, the boom of impact, the wail of sirens and the sucking roar of decompression as body after body are slurped out the breach. To the audience on the _Eclector,_ there's only silence.

It's beautiful though. Magnificent, marvellous, death at its most spectacular. And Kraglin decides in the way of any wide-eyed eighteen year old, as the fires reach the frigate's fusion core and its charred carcass bursts like a supernova, that if he's gonna go out, he wants it to be like this. In a blaze of glory that streaks through space for all of one second, before the oxygen dissipates and the ship crumples in on itself in a bright concertina.

Yondu stands silhouetted. His shoulders heave, breath wheezing somewhere between pants and laughter. His coat collar is heavy with sweat.

They're all in a similar state – pent-up, high on adrenaline, and near-exhaustion. But cap'n, when he draws himself up and turns to start the congratulations, is beaming. He claps his hands. The light of Kraglin's batteries flashes back at him from Yondu's metal teeth.

“Awright, boys! Party time!”

And in that moment, as the Ravagers holler and whoop, the floor grills shaking from the force of fifty stomping feet, Kraglin disentangles himself from the console he'd grabbed, another dead battery cylinder held in his hands, and accidentally meets his captain's eyes.

He hadn't been paying 'em much attention when he sucked him off. That had been a mere two weeks after he'd been signed to the quartermaster's log and received his first ill-fitting set of leathers. His concentration had been dedicated to a different part of Yondu's anatomy – and the arrow, ever present on his hip. Kraglin's filed fangs are of a sharpness that rivals if not surpasses Yondu's own, and he hadn't fancied finding out the punishment for giving his boss a nick. But now, those eyes hold him.

They're pink, he notices. Like Kraglin's after he smokes his way through a pack of huffer-cigarettes. And they're both fixed on his.

One of them's gotta break that gaze, so it doesn't get awkward. As cap'n doesn't seem inclined to, Kraglin takes it as his prerogative.

He fumbles the battery into his crate. The extra weight makes the contraption creak dangerously – not to mention his spine. He uncorks his bottle of soldier pills, doling them out to the sagging navs before unstrapping the electrodes from their napes and pawning them off on members of the Bridge crew who've survived too many of these battles to bother celebrating another. He focuses on the menial clean-up: retrieving the charged battery, sponging sweat from the stability-hoops that swing from the ceiling, and treating the nav-plinths to some TLC, mopping them in slow circular strokes like he's trying to soothe an animal.

He's the one who needs calming though. His heart buzzes halfway up his throat. It only buoys higher as one pair of footsteps after another leaves.

They're headed for the bar in the galley to party it up with the unranked crewmen and solo operatives, or back to their own rooms to crash. But Kraglin's duty-bound to make sure the nav consoles are operational, should another crisis strike five minutes after the first. He stays until the job is done.

So does Yondu.

He's watching him. Kraglin knows it, because hairs are raising all up his forearms and across his back, prickling and pinching under sweat-sodden leather. He ducks his head and circles harder. He rubs those plinths until they gleam, his entire side numb from the repetitive, furious motion. Then rubs some more. His cloth squeaks over the mirrored surface. Kraglin's reflection stares back at him.

Is he really blushing that much? Please let it be the lighting.

Yondu's still sat there, sprawled on his throne. Kraglin's gaze flits to his in the console's well-scrubbed flank, then hastily away again when he clocks the smirk.

A-hole.

Still, Kraglin's fulfilled his contractual obligations. Cap'n _could_ keep him here for as long as he wanted. It'd only take an order, and Kraglin'd be polishing every dusty old holo-board until the wee hours of the night-cycle. But Kraglin doesn't think he will. Or at least, he hopes he won't. He ain't given Yondu any reason to punish him. And while Yondu'd kicked him out of his quarters as soon as Kraglin'd finished swallowing, barely giving him time to zip up his pants, he hadn't seemed mad about the direction their evening had taken.

He doesn't seem mad now either. Just... smug. Very, very smug.

His mind starts feeding him thoughts of slapping that infuriating expression away with his cock. Time to go.

Kraglin thumps his chest twice, heels clicking shoddily together, and aims for the doors before he says something he'll regret.

He almost makes it too. It's as he's stepping over the threshold, batteries bowing him in half to compensate for their weight, that Yondu speaks.

“Come to my quarters after you've clocked off, boy. I'll work that kink outta your back.”

The automatic door gushes halfway out and back again, retreating before it can crush Kraglin under several hundred kilograms of blast-proof, hermetically sealing steel. But during his tenure as an engineer, Kraglin's had enough run-ins with water damage and rust-wear on this ship to never trust a door relay. He needs to make a decision. Step in or step out, before he's squished. But his mind's still muddling through those sentences, and, with his boot sole hovering inches from the safety of the corridor, he twists over his shoulder to squint.

“What?” Looking is his first mistake, talking his second. Yondu's smirk devolves into a leer. His tongue flicks his incisors, tracing the jagged chip.

“That's 'What, sir' to you.”

 _A-hole._ Kraglin swallows, throat struggling to process the sheer quantity of spit. A lead ball drops in his guts, reeled out on an anchor chain that stretches all the way up to his brain, crushing organs and diaphragm and everything in its path.

“You wanna...” he asks, one hand making a flip-flopping motion midair. “With me? Again? Sir?”

Because what else could this be? Ravagers don't give each other massages – or if they do, that's one team bonding day Kraglin hasn't been invited to. Yondu lets his eyes drift down, without any hint of subtlety.

“No,” he says, at odds with the slow lick of his lips. “Course not, Obfonteri. Careful 'bout what you insinuate – cap'n don't fuck crew.” His smile's so wide that it dimples his stubbled blue cheeks. “Specially not command crew. Causes all sorts of political pan-de-fuckin'-modium, that does.”

Kraglin might be attracted to his cap'n. Might occasionally – okay, more than _occasionally;_ but only three times a week tops – lock himself in a lightless storeroom and beat off to the thought of him. That doesn't mean he finds the man himself anything less than infuriating.

“Then why, sir,” he asks around the veiny bunch of his jaw, “d'you want me to come to yer room?”

Yondu nods, like he's congratulating Kraglin for asking the right questions. “To go over stocking tallies, o'course. You need a resupply of batteries?”

Kraglin shakes his head. If he has to carry any more, he might as well say goodbye to his ability to walk upright.

“Course you do. I insist. My treat. So come by my cabin an' bring a data pad, an' if anyone asks what yer up to, what d'you say...?”

“Stocking tallies,” Kraglin repeats. That lead ball's sinking lower and lower – but it's also started to heat, a solid and sweltering warmth that emanates from deep in his abdomen. Yondu's toothy snigger only makes the fire spread.

“Stocking tallies, _sir._ Now off ya run, boy. We got us a long night ahead.”

 

* * *

 

The night is long indeed. Not nearly long enough for Kraglin to work through all his fantasies. But he does his best, and manages to make a decent impression – Yondu's keen and the sudden slackness of the body pulling on Kraglin's knot confirms it. Captain'll remember this come morning.

Which is why it's such a disappointment when, as soon as his breathing rate has dropped, Yondu sits from where he's crushed the air (and possibly the ribs) out of Kraglin's chest. Rather than initiating round four, he squats up on the balls of his feet so Kraglin's shrinking knot flops from his body, followed by his cock and a watery-white drool. That drool lasts for an entire minute, constant and sex-stinking. Yondu pulls faces the whole time, reaching under himself to tug apart his asscheeks, letting it drain onto Kraglin rather than his bedsheets and smacking him when he protests. His hole's been stretched out by Kraglin's knot, the rim a shiny gape. There's something obscene about seeing it like this: smeared milky with cum and the tube of whatever they'd grabbed for grease, supple enough that Kraglin could stretch it with his fingers and open his captain's soft navy internals to the air.

“We done?” he pants.

Yondu stretches, spine clicking. He nods. Kraglin doesn't know how to start on any of the million questions that are rattling around his head – questions like _so is this gonna be a regular thing,_ and _you're not really gonna give me more batteries to carry, are you?_ He nods too.

There's trinkets everywhere he looks. Shiny glass baubles and little plastic figurines, glittering jewel-crusted eggs and cheap tchotchkes of the sort you can find on souvenir stalls across the populated starways, all jumbled together without any hint of value-scaling or order. They teeter on the edges of shelves and bulge out nets strung from the drooping pipe-laden ceiling. Kraglin can't choose any particular one to focus on, so he focuses on his captain instead, flashing his dirty teeth.

“That was fun.”

“It was, weren't it?” Yondu finally clambers off him. The fan clanks steadily overhead, cycling fresh air, stale air, and rust about the room. Kraglin keeps thinking he can taste blood, but it's just oxidized iron particles. They scratch his alveoli as he inhales, unfurling until his toes clip the footboard and his Mohawk brushes the wall, and he has to seize up so he doesn't cough. Yondu watches him from the corner of his eye. And – if Kraglin didn't know better, if Kraglin wasn't too smart to hope – he might think that's fondness on his face. “Yer a right lanky streak of piss, boy.”

The 'boy' rankles. “Ain't much younger than you. No more than a decade.”

“Ain't much younger than ya -”

“-Sir. Yes, I know.” Saying that he's not especially tall when measured alongside the infinite variations of species offered by this quadrant alone, and that it's more Yondu who's the short one, will probably earn him an extra windhole. Kraglin exercises his ability to keep his mouth shut. He basks in the afterglow, stroking swirls through the spunk Yondu leaked on his belly and feeling the wet tack between his own asscheeks from where the cap'n had fucked him before. It's very almost pleasant. He lays on his back with Yondu sat besides, the light from the solar-lamp prickling his closed eyelids.

Then Yondu has to ruin it. “So, you gonna fuck off now, or what?”

Kraglin snaps from his doze. “Um. What?” He adds on the “Sir” before Yondu reminds him.

Yondu swings his legs off the edge of the bed, dislodging a couple of trinkets along the way. Kraglin shouldn't find it adorable that he can't quite reach the floor, but so sue him, his head's still washy with endorphins. “You hard of hearing, Obfonteri?”

“No sir. Just -” The line of Yondu's shoulders indicates that this isn't a point Kraglin should argue. His mouth flaps soundlessly. “Just, I thought we had a moment,” he settles on, after the pause has lagged to the point where Yondu's lips are threatening to purse. “Three moments, actually. Each.” Because he feels that has to be stressed. Hell, it's a personal record.

Yondu looks at him like he's the slow kid in pilot-training class, the one who'll never be trusted to fly solo. “Yeah, boy. We had our moments. Now they're over, and you -” He gives Kraglin's shoulder a shove, not so hard that he rolls but enough to budge him sideways over the spunk-stained sheets. “-Are still in my bed. An' I'm findin' myself wonderin' why.”

Kraglin sits too. While that puts his eye-level a few inches above Yondu's own, it doesn't make him feel any taller.

“Y'know what sir?” he says, after a moment of searching that craggy blue face for anything approaching _sentiment._ “So'm I.”

And with that, he retrieves his pants from where the buckle had caught in the trellis which hammocks the piping above. Several trinkets are dislodged along the way. They patter around his bare feet like plastic hail. He wriggles the leather over hairy, bony legs and bonier hips, rams his heels into his boots, and slopes for the exit. Yondu tosses his jacket after him.

“Put that on before ya leave, idjit. And remember -”

Kraglin pauses, a pace from the door and in the process of locating his armholes. Then nods to himself and zips up, wincing when the clasp catches jizz-slicked belly hair. “Supply stock meeting.”

“Supply stock meeting _sir!_ ” But Kraglin's already punched the closing pad. The door cuts Yondu off in a hiss of sealing rubber.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments = lifeblood


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Kraglin works some things out**
> 
>  
> 
> **CN: Insinuated noncon**

When he walks out of that cabin, muttering under his breath and itchy with drying jizz, he's convinced that's the end of it. No more nookie-nookie with the boss. Yondu Udonta is a jackass, an a-hole, and a krutak-slagging nerfherder, all mixed into one. His nether regions ain't going to bump Kraglin's again, not even if the galaxy burns down tomorrow and they're the last two sentient souls with compatible genitalia.

That is, perhaps, a little extreme. By the time he's reached his bunk, halfway up the wall in a stack of Ravagers who snore loud enough to make the ladder rattle, Kraglin's cooled off. He concedes that maybe, just maybe, Yondu has a point.

Cap'n's older than him. Not _grossly_ so, but those five-or-eight years place him in his mid-to-late twenties, whereas Kraglin's recently crested eighteen. That's a lot of vital experience he's missed out on. And – well, hell. Yondu's a... A Centauri-whassit, right? Who even knows if his concept of basic courtesy matches Kraglin's, who's been sleeping in piles of streetkids for as long as he can remember, and to whom sharing bodyheat is as simple as passing a huffer cigarette back and forth?

Cultural differences are a finnicky thing in space, and a lack of sensitivity to them usually gets folks dead. Kraglin's lucky he didn't stagger away from Yondu's cabin with an arrow through his neck.

He obviously hasn't overstepped too grievously though, because not two weeks later Yondu taps his shoulder and says 'stock check'. This time Kraglin remembers his data pad. He figures their meeting will do what it says on the tin. What it turns out to be – a meeting of Yondu's cock and his ass, on repeat – is far more fun. It goes a long way towards convincing Kraglin that he's not on the naughty list.

The incident the week after, where Yondu sidles up to him at a bar they're staking out and mutters 'bathroom, five minutes', and proceeds to ride his knot while Kraglin wobbles about on top of a creaky old toilet seat and bites a hole in his sleeve to stay quiet, hammers the point home.

By the time Kraglin shows up at Yondu's door uninvited, knocks, and finds him half-asleep but amenable to having his legs spread so long as Kraglin don't bitch when he starts to nod off halfway and decides to boot Kraglin out rather than continuing, he realizes they don't just have _moments._ They have _a thing._ Maybe an unofficial one, and not-yet acknowledged, but hey. It's a slippery slope.

So, naturally, next time they fall into bed together, he assumes he's allowed to stay.

He's wrong.

Captain's greedy as ever. Kraglin fucks him through the first orgasm and grinds him through the second while knotted, the roll of his dick over Yondu's prostate milking him until his balls squeeze dry and every twitch makes him whine. Fittingly, after that ordeal, Kraglin is first to catch his breath. He waits a moment, listening to gravel rasp in Yondu's throat. Then smirks, ducks to lick sweat off his sternum, and hauls himself to freedom.

Or at least, he tries. His knot's shrinking, but it's still plump enough to make his cap'n squirm. Extraction requires a thumb and forefinger, stretching Yondu from the outside while Kraglin swivels his hips, manipulating the deflating globes through that tight little ring. Even when that ring's been very-thoroughly-fucked, the pressure's enough to make Kraglin's eyes half-lid.

His soft cock squelches through the runny sluice of cum-and-lube. His captain's legs jerk, calves tensing on Kraglin's shoulders. Yondu has his head tossed back, blue chest patchy with reds and pinks as the baubles in the overhead nets split the light like stained glass windows.

It's a pretty picture. Those are rare, where Yondu's concerned.

Kraglin pops loose. The fuzz of pleasure is nothing like the urgency that precedes an orgasm. It's muted and hazy: more of a deep-seated primal satisfaction, spurred by that last, parting wring of Yondu's hole and the just-visible seep of his seed from inside him.

Kraglin collapses on the furs, moan chuffing from his chest. He loops a lazy arm over Yondu's shoulders. The only way to make this evening more perfect - after watching Yondu butcher a contact who'd fed them false information, and getting an official congratulation from Stakar which had almost made Yondu's head too big to fit through the cabin doorway – is a drowsy hour spent cuddling his cap'n before sleep.

Yondu has other ideas. He flicks Kraglin's nose. When that only makes him burrow deeper into the pillows, Yondu hauls him up under the armpits and frogmarches him naked to the door.

That's a harsher wake-up than any siren. Kraglin flails. Then, when that doesn't slow Yondu, sags deadweight in his arms. It's just as ineffective. Kraglin's left wishing, not for the first time, that he weighed more than the average ten-year-old. He turns to his final and most desperate tactic: begging.

“Lemme put my pants on! Lemme put my goddam pants on! Yer the one who don't want crew to know -”

Yondu snickers, twisting Kraglin's forearm painfully high behind his back. His other hand hovers over the door release key. He waits until Kraglin's full-on quaking, eyes wide and nostrils flaring at the thought of the walk of shame. Then releases him with a chortle and an ass-slap that, considering the boniness of Kraglin's behind, hurts Yondu more than Kraglin.

No wonder the guy prefers bottoming.

But despite Kraglin's grumbles of “Why the fuck do I sleep with ya” and “You ain't nothin' but a jackass” and Yondu's cheerful reminders of “Ain't nothin' but a jackass, _sir_ ” he knows he'll be back. While Yondu's scanner-lock ain't yet aligned to Kraglin's biometrics (meaning he can shut him out whenever the fancy strikes) Kraglin is exempt from the zapper-function that dissuades the lower ranking crewmembers from playing knock-and-run. He ain't just a rookie in Yondu's eyes. Not anymore. It ain't much, but Kraglin is unused to affection. He hoards the scraps Yondu throws him – such as occasionally allowing five minutes to pass before he kicks him out, loaning him high-collared shirts when the hickeys are obvious, and not putting up too much of a fuss when those shirts aren't returned - like they're nuggets of gold.

“See ya at canteen, boss?” he asks, tugging on the latest in his collection. The leather's soft and crinkly. Kraglin doesn't bother to hide his smile at the looseness round the chest and the shortness on the arms. He breathes deep, inhaling the stink of  _R_ _avager._ It ain't the most pleasant aroma, not by any civilized person's standards. But there's something about Yondu's particular blend of B.O., booze-breath and well-tanned leather, something unique and not quite describable, which lingers on his clothes months after Kraglin steals them.

Admittedly, that's probably due to how rarely he does laundry. Kraglin can't help but savor it though. He smacks his lips like he's sampling fine wine (cheese, more like), and realizes he's still smiling when Yondu rolls his eyes and shoves him through the doorway.

“Get that dumb look off yer face. S'unprofessional.”

“Cause professional's exactly what we are,” Kraglin agrees.

“Professional's exactly what we are -”

“Sir.”

“Good boy. ” Yondu leans his bare shoulder on the frame, hidden from the hallway cameras by inches. He taps Kraglin on the chest . “Bring that shirt back, y'hear? I'm runnin' low.”

“Stop tearing my jacket zippers,” Kraglin suggests. He nods to the puddle of red by the bedside that Yondu'll either dump in the tailor's scrap-bucket or leave to molder. “Then I'll consider it, cap'n.”

 

* * *

 

Mostly it's rough and frantic: Yondu riding Kraglin like he's lead jockey in a race, kissing him only as he pulses wetness up his chest and bears down on Kraglin's knot. Sometimes there's scarcely time for a jerk, and every now and then boss doesn't reciprocate, letting Kraglin suck him then kicking him out without offering a hand.

Kraglin's starting to recognize a sadism in Yondu, which makes his captain snigger at the thought of Kraglin stomping back to his bunk with a hard cock jutting at the front of his jumpsuit, ignoring all hoots and jeers and questions of 'who's the girl?' It makes it impossible to be angry at him for the unfair slant on their sexgames. The tricksy jackass _loves_ to push buttons, and Kraglin, being a hotheaded newly-turned twenty-one-year-old, has many, many buttons to push.

(Every now and then, Yondu tips Kraglin facefirst across his bed so he can hold his Mohawk with one hand and slap his scrawny asscheeks red with the other, while he rocks his dick to rest between 'em. Kraglin doesn't get much out of it. Not nearly so much as Yondu seems to when he's squatting over his lap, grunting and clenching and swearing as he cums from Kraglin's cock alone. But he still has fun, and at least on those occasions Yondu's kind enough to provide reach-around services free of charge.)

The pair of 'em experiment with whatever they can get their hands on. They trial new positions, new lubes, new toys, new-new-new, always seeking out ways to keep it fresh, like they're scared the other's gonna lose interest.

By the time they acquire a snotty lil' Terran, and then after – once Kraglin hits thirty and Yondu's dangerously close to the decade above – Kraglin is starting to suspect that they ain't going to tire of each other. Not until one of them's dead.

But while there's (usually) less blood and gunsmoke, their sexlife does emulate their worklife in one unavoidable way. For all they purport it to be lawless, there are... rules. Whenever Kraglin's fucking his cap'n they do it face to face. Never doggy. And, woe betide Kraglin if he tries to get Yondu to suck his dick. Only thing that's ever been said on the subject is 'last one got bitten off' – the threat of which should be the exact opposite of a turn-on, and if Kraglin keeps telling himself that he might start to believe it. And of course, there's the issue of staying the night.

Kraglin'd assumed that last one would loosen up, as years passed and routines settled and they started falling into bed besides each other with a regularity that threatened a stable relationship. But no. His cap'n is as unpredictable as he's dangerous – in all matters except these.

No doggy-style.

No cocksucking.

No sleepovers.

It's only natural that Kraglin starts to collect fantasies: plowing Yondu across the captain's chair, having him kneel before him for a change, and once – just once – waking up with a blue body tucked besides his. He tries to change Yondu's mind, plying him with kisses, arching his back and exaggerating his moans when Yondu's fucking him facedown to give him an idea of how good it can be. And perhaps he's a bit too fixated on it, trying to turn his cap'n over mid-sex and bearing the kicks to the kidneys and the sudden limpet-like clinging to his front with a sigh. Because Yondu gets it into his head that this is the next New Thing on Kraglin's list, and that without it he'll go unsatisfied.

Kraglin's cock thuds off the back of his jumpsuit zipper when, after walking him towards the bed, Yondu breaks off their kiss and turns, presenting the stripes that mar his back. Kraglin traces them reverently. He knows how much this means. His fingertips skirt each welt, each chunk that's been carved from Yondu's blue skin, as if they're the combination-clickers in a safe he's cracking. He's never one to look a gift gun in the barrel. He already has a hand rested on his nape, ready to enact a dry baptism and push Yondu onto the mattress.

But all the eager anticipation in the world can't mask how much his captain's shaking.

Kraglin checks his arms. Nope. Hair's laying flat. Ain't cold. Which means... “Sir?”

“Don'tchu say a word.” Yondu's got his eyes shut. Kraglin can tell from the shadows on his cheeks. His throat distends round a gulp so big it looks like he's swallowed a fist. “Not _one_ , Kraggles. You hear?”

Kraggles hears. He nods – then grunts an affirmation, remembering Yondu can't see it. They stand for half a minute, Yondu stock still and tense enough to vibrate and Kraglin struggling not to shuffle his feet. He wonders if he should give his cock a tug, so that when Yondu's head is back in the game they'll have something to work with. He's been ordered not to talk, so he can't very well enquire whether Yondu'd rather go about this in their usual way: Kraglin pinned under blue brawn, splaying covetous fingers over his captain's nipples, pouch and cock while he fucks him only as fast and hard as Yondu allows. But he can make the offer of a switch-up through other methods.

Yondu jerks when Kraglin touches him. Just a little – not a flinch but on the precipice. It makes Kraglin's chest tighten.

He ain't fucking stupid, despite Yondu's regular claims to the contrary. He slots the fragments together. The growls and snaps when Kraglin tries to get Yondu to be little spoon or ride him reverse cowgirl, or playfully sneaks up behind him to smack his ass when they're alone in the showers. The lash marks. The attitude. The biggest and ugliest of his big ugly scars, which sits where Kraglin's holopad informs him a Centaurian's dorsal crest ought to. And that " _bit the last one off":_ a phrase performed with a chuckle so well-practised it didn't sound fake.

Those pieces form a picture of... Well, something. Something serious and dark and brutal that Yondu deserved none of, but which he'll hate Kraglin for prying into. Nope, captain'll share when and if he wants. Kraglin ain't taking that freedom away from him.

He holds on, letting Yondu adjust to the hand on his shoulder. Then spins him round and presses until Yondu sits – of his own volition, because Kraglin is many things but strong enough to haul his bulky brick of a cap'n about ain't one of them. As he folds to his knees and lifts a soft blue cock, nuzzling until it perks to the attention, he rests the fingers that ain't fondling the furrow between Yondu's asscheeks on a too-tense thigh.

He doesn't say what he wants to. Doesn't say _It's okay_ or _I'm sorry_ or _I'll make 'em pay, I swear it._ Yondu said no talking.

And this time, when Yondu flops against the covers, shuddering from pleasure rather than That Thing Kraglin Ain't Asking About, Kraglin wipes his mouth and stands with a last wet kiss to Yondu's inseam.

He sees himself out. No bitching, no questioning, no prompting. He drags on his clothes, swearing as he hops into the boots one at a time. He fastens his baggy jumpsuit - made of leather durable enough to withstand Yondu's nails - and gives his stiff cock a last, lingering rub before zipping it away for later.

He also shoots his cap'n a smile. Just to let him know he ain't holding this against him.

He finds Yondu pushed up on his elbows, white drizzling the softening skin of his stomach and collecting in the seam of his pouch. His expression's unreadable as he watches him leave through the spread valley of his legs.

 

* * *

 

Kraglin walks until the weight in his cock recedes. He manages to make it to an unpopulated corridor before he starts punching every solid object he sees.

He _knows_ the galaxy's a shithole. He knows bad things happen to men – and women, and kids, and those who don't slot so easily into gender binaries. It ain't never bothered him much. But in this moment he's _furious._

As he can't turn whoever dared hold his cap'n down into sausage meat without pressing Yondu for names, the only remaining option is to batter the wall until it caves or his knuckles do.

 

* * *

 

Yondu spares his bound fingers a glance at mess. “You win?”

Kraglin, cross-eyed with the concentration it takes to balance the spoon on his bandages, nods.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This is legit as close to h/c as I can get with this pairing. These boys and their dumb stunted emotions. Next chapter features a delightful teenage Peter!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Peter is a pest**

Peter’s six years older and six hundred times more irritating than when they first acquired-slash-stole-slash-picked-him-up.

Kraglin doesn’t ask for details. Not about this, or any of the other Ego jobs. He was present at the tribunal, standing by his disgraced captain’s side as Stakar flung slur after slur, calling him _child murderer, monster, no better than the freaks I saved you from…_

Yondu says he has no idea what Ego was doing to them kids. Kraglin believes him, despite Stakar’s accusations, because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.

His cap'n is pretty fucked up – Kraglin’s first to admit it – and in a variety of interesting and disturbing ways. The revelation of Ego’s child-butchery has added yet another misting of nitro glycerine to the dynamite of Yondu’s psyche. Stakar’s verdict - _banishment, shunning, no lights to be shone over your graves_ \- is one that no amount of frenetic sex, gentle kisses, breath-sharing and slow rocking together during the night cycle can fix (not that this stops Kraglin and Yondu from trying).

But anyway. Back to Quill.

Boy’s a teenager now - fourteen by the latest estimate. That in itself ain’t awful, except Quill’s made it his mission to fulfil every stereotype in the book.

His hair’s a shaggy mop. He’s got more pimples than he has pores. He showers only under extreme duress – and to reach a level of stinky that results in Yondu’s intervention is truly admirable. Kraglin’s almost impressed. Or he would be, if he and Peter and Yondu hadn’t been stuck in this cell together for the past four days and nights, with full access to wash facilities that Peter has yet to use.

“Kid,” he says, through gritted teeth. “Yer makin’ my eyes water. I can’t fuckin’ sleep when you smell so goddam awful. _Cap'n_ can’t sleep. Now get in that goddam washrack and scrub yerself down, before I do it for ya.”

That gets Peter moving. Grouchily, and with a diverse plethora of cusswords muttered under his breath, which he must have picked up from every species to wear the flame. But when Kraglin thins his eyes, he pretends he said nothing at all.

He manages to make the heavy clunk of the shower lever sound petulant. Little shit. But he’s Yondu’s little shit, so Kraglin puts up with him. Hell, when he’s fresh washed and smelling of BO-steeped leather rather than the congealed bodily secretions of however many months it’d been since he last saw water, his company’s almost pleasant. He’s going through his untalkative phase – all monosyllabic grunts. Kraglin prefers that to the chatter that’d followed him around the hallways once-upon-a-year, as an eight-year-old clung to his sleeves and got underfoot and tugged on his jumpsuit when he thought Kraglin was ignoring him (so, constantly).

Between Peter’s mutinous, clean-scrubbed silence, and their captors having decided that the three of them are worth more as hostages than the effort it would take to interrogate them, Kraglin could almost nod off.

…Only he can’t. Because for the past four nights Yondu has been awake when he goes to sleep and awake when he wakes, and each time he’s looked more dark-eyed and ragged around the edges.

“Cap'n?” It takes a moment for Yondu to realize he’s being addressed. When he swings his head around it’s painfully slow, as if they’re in high gravity. He affixes baleful red eyes to Kraglin’s. Or to the wall besides Kraglin’s head. He ain’t focusing right, and his eye-sockets look deeper than docking bays.

It makes the glare less blood-curdling, at least. Kraglin sighs, shuffling until his shoulderpads graze Yondu’s.

“You gotta sleep, sir. Please.” If Peter’s eavesdropping, he has the kindness to pretend otherwise. Kraglin wraps a lanky arm round his captain’s shoulders. He ain’t the comfiest pillow, but at least there’s a barrier of skin over his angular bits, and he’s warm, which is more than can be said for the floor. “Sir. Sleep now.”

Yondu pushes him away. He rises, shaking. His legs look ready to fold from under him. Ignoring Kraglin’s nervous gaze and gnawed lips, he totters to the cell’s far corner and collapses in a pile of grubby leather, back turned and head hunched so that Kraglin can barely see his implant.

They don’t have any soldier pills. Ain’t no artificial way for Yondu to keep himself from nodding off. Stars know how he’s managing – Kraglin certainly doesn’t. At least, not until he spies Yondu wriggling his hand up his sleeve, moving at the pace of the zombies from the Terran films Peter insists they stream from the Xandarian Discovery Channel during the season of the astral year that aligns to what he calls ‘Halloween’. 

Yondu gathers blue flesh for a short, hard pinch. His nails come back bloody. How many times has he done this? Brutalized that small patch of skin until it bruised and broke…

Kraglin aches to hold him. He knows he’d only get an elbow to the face if he tried – a slow and clumsy one, which he could probably dodge. But captain nurses grudges. If Kraglin coddles him, he’ll be on scrubs for the next decade once they’re outta here.

Because they’re gonna get outta here, obviously. Yondu might not be able to connect to his arrow – he was knocked out during the battle, with aid of a well-aimed tranquilizer dart. Seeing him fall had kept Kraglin fighting long after the other Ravagers had retreated, tearing through man after man, soldier after soldier, dislocating spines from necks and popping skulls with his blasters until an enemy put a knife to Yondu’s neck and ordered him and Quill to surrender. Kraglin had obeyed - because if he was using him as a meatshield that meant Yondu was still alive. 

But Kraglin and Peter ain’t entirely helpless. They’re both experienced brawlers, and cap’n can throw a hearty punch with or without his magic stick. All they need is an opportunity. And, preferably, for Yondu to be able to walk once that opportunity arises.

“What’s wrong with boss?” Quill asks. When Kraglin tosses him a surprised look, he glares right back, daring him to call him out for the sentiment. Yondu answers so Kraglin doesn’t have to:

“M'fine. Go the fuck to sleep.”

The slow slur of his voice and the closed-off block of his back, turned towards them in a wall of muscle and leather, indicates he won’t be joining them.

By the time the fifth morning rolls in and Horuz beats down the door, greeting Yondu and Kraglin with grunts and Peter with a blunt 'they ain’t eaten you yet?’ Yondu looks damn near extinction. His face has sunken into his skull. His cheekbones and jaw protrude like those of a starved man. But there’s crew outside, and the mask’s gotta go on. Yondu reels up his drawbridge – slowly, slowly – and wobbles to stand slower still.

Kraglin hurries to grab him, trying to wedge his shoulder under his armpit like a human crutch. Yondu smacks him off.

“Fetch my arrow,” is all he says. Because even running sleepless to the extent that he’s probably hallucinating, that’s still a priority. And because Kraglin is a dutiful first mate, who obeys his cap'n even when he should probably tranq-dart him again and make him konk out by force, he catches Quill by the ear and drags him squawking from the cell after him.

Cap'n don’t want them to see this. He doesn’t want to have that curtain pulled back, doesn’t want them to witness him piling bravado and sass over the wretched husk of a man they’ve been sharing this cage with.

That’s fair. Kraglin don’t much want to see it either.

 

* * *

 

So all in all, by the time Peter runs and the Ravagers pursue and a shiny lil’ orb almost brings the whole of Xandar to its knees, Kraglin’s seen his cap'n sleep in front of him precisely once.

Yondu snores. It’s whuffly and quiet, like the sneeze of a small mammal, and if Kraglin were suicidal, he might describe it as 'cute’. Being as cap'n ain’t awake, he also ain’t able to whistle Kraglin through – so Kraglin cherishes this moment for as long as it lasts, perched on the chair besides the sickbay pallet and snickering to himself with every rise and fall of his captain’s bare, electrode-studded chest.

Quill ain’t there, because he’s twenty years old and is just learning how not to be his captain’s shadow. He’ll swing by soon enough. Kraglin doesn’t doubt it. While things have become … strained, in the Terran department (half-Terran technically, although Yondu’s stressed the importance of keeping that secret so often that even _thinking_ about Peter’s parentage seems sacrilegious) Peter still stores far too much mush in his chest cavity. He’ll pass through on his lunch break with a spare bowl for doc, and pretend that’s the only reason he’s here.

Like Kraglin’s much better. He’s lounged out by his captain’s bedside rather than off shouting orders on the Bridge - the precise opposite of what Yondu would want. But as he ain’t awake, he can’t order him otherwise. If there’s a mutiny, or the navs pilot them into another asteroid field, or the fusion core blows and they’re all incinerated in a plume of hellish purple fire, Yondu’s ghost is gonna be mighty pissed. But Kraglin’ll deal with that when it happens, and not a moment before.

For now it’s him, Doc Mijo – who’s quietly rummaging in a cabinet on the other side of the medbay, to give her patient and his first mate privacy – and the steady knit of skin over the slice in Yondu’s belly.

They’ve had to stitch up his pouch. Something about that feels wrong, especially when cap'n ain’t conscious to consult on it. But as far as Kraglin knows, Yondu only ever uses that flap of elasticated skin for smuggling trinkets onto and off ship without his crew noticing. When it came to a choice between letting Yondu’s guts spill into the open air after a knife caught under the lip and _ripped_ , or sealing 'em up inside that blue envelope, Kraglin had made the decision for him, and he’s convinced it’s the right one.

“Well, this is creepy. You keeping vigil, Krags?”

Here comes Quill. Kraglin yawns and scratches his armpit. He pushes out the stool besides him with his boot, inviting Peter to sit. The kid – only he ain’t really a kid no more, being taller than both his Ravager retainers and getting burlier every day – eyes it like he expects it to be whipped away at short notice. “Uh, nah. Just passing through.” He points to the bowl, left on Mijo’s counter top between the crusty surgical implements and the bowls of irradiated antiseptic. “Food for doc, y'know?”

Kraglin called it. They really need to work on Peter’s ability to spin an impromptu cover story. The lesson’ll have to wait until Yondu wakes up though. Kraglin never did have the patience for teaching, especially not when the student is some hick kid who Kraglin privately thinks would’ve made better stew than a Ravager.

He shrugs, a shallow jerky motion, and proceeds to ignore Quill until he says something or leaves. Quill being Quill opts for the most irritating avenue possible, and dithers behind Kraglin so his presence is a constant needling on the back of his neck.

Kraglin doesn’t like it when his spine faces anything but a wall or his cap’n. Having Peter so close fills him with jitters. His mind informs him there’s a potential threat outside his sphere of vision - but captain’s in front of him, breathing in time with the steady warble of his monitors, so Kraglin ain’t turning away, not for one moment. He snorts loud enough to make Peter jump.

“What?”

“You gonna stand there all cycle, or do you got work to do?”

“N-no, I – Just…” Peter steps forwards – finally. His jacket enters Kraglin’s peripherals, and Kraglin releases a silent sigh, letting tension unwind. Luckily, Peter’s too busy squeezing his captain’s hand to notice. “He looks so small. Is that weird?”

Kraglin smacks him away. That’d be the perfect moment for Taserface to walk in: while Quill was clutching boss’s limp blue paw like he could wake him up via tactile osmosis.

“People tend to, when they’s sleepin’,” he says shortly. It’s true. Without the bombast, the braggadocio, the constant projection of _I’m the biggest thing in the room and if you argue, I’ll whistle,_ Yondu does look somewhat diminished. A short stocky blue guy, not especially muscular or especially dangerous. Doesn’t have fangs or claws to speak of – although his teeth, visible in the dark slice of his mouth as he snores, are sharp as chipped glass, and his nails grow to natural points. But that’s incidental. If it weren’t for the wedge of crystal jammed in his skull, he could be mistaken for any one of the numerous blue species who’ve made their home in this corner of the quadrant.

Kraglin wonders if this is it, if this is the reason Yondu never lets him watch him sleep. Because he’s afraid Kraglin’ll realize he’s mortal, and…

Well, then what?

Become disillusioned?

Leave him?

Kraglin shakes his head, forgetting for a moment that Quill’s there. He wishes he had the vocabulistics to tell his cap'n that he knows he’s just a man, without offending him.

Quill watches with more intelligence than Kraglin gives him credit for. He doesn’t take the stool. Kraglin refuses to offer it for a second time – boy said he wasn’t staying, and he’s gotta learn to live up to his promises. But while Quill doesn’t dare lift Yondu’s fingers again, he does rest his palm, just briefly, on the Centaurian’s scarred forehead, only for as long as it takes for Kraglin to bristle and make to slap him off. Quill snatches his hand away before the blow connects.

“Tell him I’m glad he ain’t dead?”

“Sure,” Kraglin says. As if – he don’t want to get punched for sentiment. Quill doesn’t spot the lie. You’d think living with a band of crooks and thieves whose poker faces make trained casino operatives look shoddy, would be good for eating away at childish gullibility. But Quill’s always been weirdly trusting of Yondu. Apparently, by lieu of being an extension of the cap'n, Kraglin falls into that same small and carefully-pruned category of _folks Peter thinks don’t lie to him._

Satisfied his message will be passed on, Quill retreats into that itchy place behind him. “Tell him you’re glad he ain’t dead too, yeah Krags? Think he might like to hear that. Just once.”

“You ain’t my cap'n,” Kraglin reminds him, as he always does when the brat gets snooty and starts giving orders. He doesn’t need to see Quill rolling his eyes – he hears it in his voice.

“Just friendly advice. Y'know. One man to another.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

But after Quill bestows one last pat on Yondu’s blanketed foot – and scarpers before Kraglin can kick him – and Yondu cracks one eye and hisses “Is he gone yet?” Kraglin’s too busy smirking to fret about why Peter fuck-everything-with-a-cunt-between-it’s-legs Quill thinks he needs relationship advice.

Luckily, even if he’d planned on repeating Quill’s words, he wouldn’t have to. Who knows how long Yondu’s been faking sleep? Git probably heard the lot anyway.

 

* * *

 

Next time Kraglin’s the one in the bed.

Medstock’s near depleted. Kraglin doesn’t ask details because it ain’t Kraglin’s business, but there’s rumblings from the quartermaster, and muffled arguments between Mijo and Yondu in the dead of the night-cycle about how _we ain’t part of Stakar’s band anymore_ and _we gotta stop wasting supplies_ and _it’s hard to keep a ship this big maintained without help from the brass_. Kraglin’s lucky they haven’t yet pawned the equipment that’s stopping his lungs from closing up.

Yondu could say a lot. He could say 'that paralytic was meant for me’ or 'you’re a fucking idiot, Obfonteri’ or even 'thanks for saving my sorry blue hide’. But he doesn’t.

They don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it until the moment Yondu decides he’s wasted enough time scowling at his laid-out first mate, letting his frustration and his fury and that deep-seated, never acknowledged fear filter through in silence. He turns on the threshold of the medbay, glare poisonous as a snake’s.

“Obfonteri. Don’t do that again.”

Kraglin can’t work a 'yessir’ out around the ventilation tube in his throat. Which is good, because that’s one promise he would never make anyway.

 

* * *

 

He recovers quickly, all things considered. Hraxian metabolisms are marvellous things. They blaze through drugs at rates that are frankly alarming – including painkillers, to Kraglin’s disappointment. 

Yondu swings by the medbay in between shifts to see him. He claims it’s on business, not that anyone asked – he needs to keep his mate up-to-date with the goings-on on Bridge. When Mijo offers him a bed (as subtly as possible, phrased as a half-joke and with her cane angled between them defensively, as if that’d be of any use against his arrow) he declines.

“Rather sleep in the sweet comfort of my own damn cabin,” he declares, studiously not-looking at Kraglin. “If the idjit croaks in the night, you can comm me.”

“Thanks, sir,” Kraglin tries to say. The respirator tube makes words impossible. Yondu gets the gist though, and treats him to a lingering flipped bird as he walks backwards through the medbay hatch.

“You better be up on Bridge by the end of the astral week, or I'mma scrape what flesh I can off yer bones and make it into stroganoff.”

“Sure you are sir.” Yondu squints at him, like the view of Kraglin on the bed, scrawny torso elevated on pillows and dwarfed by the number of machines keeping his lungs and kidneys working until the paralytic wears off, is gonna help him understand what he’s saying.

“What?”

“Nothin’. I love ya, you idjit.”

Yondu digs a finger in his ear and snorts, sharing a smirk with Mijo. “Save the yap for when you ain’t deep-throating plastic.”

Kraglin settles on the sheets, satisfied. “For when I’m deep-throating you instead then?”

“The hell’s he sayin’?”

Mijo shrugs. “No idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thanks to everyone who comments! I love you all xxx**


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Kraglin gets punched, Taserface plots, and Peter Quill is a problem child.**

'Things fall apart' is far too dramatic. The unravelling of Yondu's faction is a slow and cumulative process, comparable to the weathering of coastal cliffs by the rhythmic drag of the waves.

Nothing occurs in an instant. Not up here in the aether, surrounded by the timeless, ageless, infinite black. Not even the blast of a supernova can be said to be 'over quickly'. The bright burst evolves across decades, traveling further and further away in a vast ripple of light.

But while there's no such thing as a spontaneous mutiny, there are always... catalysts. Things, people, events, which spur on the inevitable. Hell, one of them lives in their midst – not that Yondu listens when Kraglin tells him so.

There's a disconnect growing between Quill and the Ravagers. It widens every day.

 _Family_ ain't a word bandied around by Ravagers (or at least never not in mocking tones). Quill only uses it once, gesturing to himself, Yondu, and Kraglin, with a smile so nervous it borders a grimace. He's laughed out the room.

Yondu laughs hardest and longest of all. But by the time the others have wandered off to fuck whores and chug spirits and start punch-ups, and amuse themselves among the myriad of other crude delights offered by this pitstop; when it's just him and Kraglin seated in the corner of a dingy, poorly-lit bar, that big guffaw shrinks into a fond chuckle, then a smile. That's private and small, and (to Kraglin's concern) utterly delighted.

Shame Quill ain't there to see it.

Quill guns his M-ship out the hangar in the dead of night and takes a week of unannounced leave. (He bitches when Yondu docks his pay, to which Yondu says next time he docks him by a head.)

He sources a couple of jobs on his lonesome, with a half-hearted pretence at secrecy, and only parts with cap'n's share under the duress of a whistle.

Quill backtalks Yondu on jobs, in front of crew, in front of clients, everywhere.

And Yondu snaps and glowers and _threatens,_ threatens until he works through his entire repertoire (a bank that Kraglin had thought to be self-perpetuating) and has to start over from the beginning.

“Dammit, boy! If you don't show me some stars-damn respect, yer on tonight's menu!”

Quill laughs. It ain't humorous.

“Fuck off, old man” he says. The 'o' word is especially jarring, as it would see Kraglin locked out of Yondu's cabin for a week. But Quill gets away with it, like he always does. He stomps off to tinker with his M-ship, and doesn't look back.

Kraglin knows their situation is past repair when Quill punches Yondu outside of a training bout or a sting operation. It's over something petty (there's plenty to choose from: Yondu abandoning Quill on an uncontacted planet when he failed to make rendezvous; Yondu threatening to demote him to Rookie-status if he misbehaves; Yondu reminding him for the thousandth time that he could've eaten him and, on days where Quill's being ornery, that he regrets not doing so). Rather than bellowing and belting him in return, Yondu just looks _sad._ Like he's surprised by what Peter's just done, but he understands. Like he's gonna let him walk.

That'd be okay, if they were in private quarters. Well – Kraglin'd let Yondu think it was okay. He'd hunt Peter down afterwards and give him a private talking-to that cap'n didn't need to know about; but if cap'n wants to spoil the Terran that's his own business. Right now though, they're on Bridge. In front of crew. In front of _Taserface._

Kraglin ain't allowing this.

A fragility has been forming onboard the _Eclector_ , like volcanic glass in a rock crucible. The Ravagers act as tough, look as gnarly, and smell as bad as ever. But jobs have worn thinner and thinner over the years. Without Stakar's leadership (and his fathomless bank vaults at their disposal) a brittle fissure has grown, one that's just waiting for someone to tap it with a hammer.

Kraglin suspects that Quill is hammer-shaped.

“Quill!” he roars. “Thas a week in the brig, and you count yerself lucky you ain't gonna be keel-hauled!”

That snaps Yondu to life. But it's Kraglin he rounds on, not Peter, and he's so furious that he doesn't notice the spit flecking Kraglin's stubble as he yells.

“You ain't the one that dishes out punishment, Obfonteri! You don't got a say!”

“But I was just – He -”

“No fuckin' buts! Maybe you're the one I oughta brig, huh? Think yer such a bigshot you can take my place, give my orders?”

Yondu's bigging this up, all furious flashing implant and bared teeth, new bruise shading his chin. His coat's tossed back from his arrow. The vibrating needle completes the picture: buzzing in its sheathe, poised to strike.

But Kraglin notices Quill stomping away out the corner of his eye. He sees the distraction for what it is.

He has three choices. He can disengage. He can tell cap'n that ain't what he meant at all, that he's got it all wrong: sponge and scrape and act the worm. He can reveal what he's realized – that Yondu ain't yelling because he's mad; Yondu's yelling because he's the biggest damn predator in the room. He knows that every eye automatically snaps to him whenever he's pissed, and so long as that attention's on him, it ain't on Quill.

Or, he can do as his captain's eyes plead, and help him out.

Kraglin sighs. He resigns himself to a fortnight of scrub shifts. Then he squares up to Yondu and tells him to his face nothing more and nothing less than the truth.

“I'm first mate. If you ain't fit for captaining, s'my job to take over til you are again.”

The Bridge goes deadly-silent.

“What,” says Yondu quietly, “did you say?”

Kraglin wets his lips. “Didn't think you were gonna speak up 'bout Quill layin' hands on you, sir. That's all. His sorta crime demands an answer. Ain't nobody who touches our cap'n -” _my cap'n_ “-and gets away with it.”

There. Deferential enough to show he ain't starting mutiny, but still with a hint of chastisement. If Yondu'd only punched Quill back like he was supposed to...

But Yondu didn't. And now the ring of rubbernecking Ravagers means he's gotta mete out punishment to Kraglin in his stead.

Kraglin takes the first fist to his jaw. It snaps sideways, popping and clicking as joints jar. He takes the uppercut to the solar plexus and the boot to the ribs that follows it too. He takes and he takes until he's a sweating, bloody, purpled mass of bruises, until the Ravagers have lost interest in the beatdown and only Yondu remains, standing staggered and panting while he stares between Kraglin and the red on his fists.

Kraglin snorts a clot back up his nose. He wobbles to sit. When cap'n offers a hand, he takes it.

 

* * *

 

Taserface approaches at mess. Kraglin's chosen a seat that's in permanent shadow, overcast by the ventilation pipe above. His bruise-fat face is turned away from the crew, and his cuff is crusty with blood wiped from his nostrils.

The initial pain has ebbed. Now it's concentrated on his cheekbones and eye sockets, making his bones feel swollen as if he's contracted a fast-acting bout of sinusitis. When Taserface pauses besides him he grunts into his soup, shuffling along the bench to give the other man room.

They don't get along, him and ol' Tazie. But that doesn't mean Kraglin can't be civil. One beating a day is enough.

While he may technically pull rank over Taserface, Ravager leadership is determined on the basis of strength and crew support, not the job-title scrawled besides their names in the rosters. Kraglin and Taserface have yet to brawl. But the few times Kraglin got pissed off enough at his taunting (and Yondu's laughter) to go toe-to-toe with him in a ring, he didn't emerge victorious. It's lucky, he thinks, that Taserface can't count higher than twenty – and that if he has any interest in fucking the cap'n, it's all fueled by hate rather than that odd sprouting weed which germinates in Kraglin's chest whenever Yondu grins. Otherwise, he might've ousted Kraglin long ago.

If Kraglin's tall and slim and Yondu short and stocky, Taserface's been blessed with both their best aspects. He's a bull-necked bearded beef-slab of a man, bigger than Kraglin in height and girth. He's also, to Kraglin's alarm, holding out a mug of something steaming. And judging by the twitch of his lipless cheeks, he's trying to smile.

Kraglin trusts this about as far as he can get in space without a suit.

He accepts the offering, raising it to his nostrils and inhaling a lungful of vapor in the hopes he'll be able to tell if the drink is liable to burn straight through his mouth and out the underside. He doesn't say shit. Just sits, and swishes the smoky liquor, and waits for Taserface to take a mouthful before copying him. Taserface parks, bowing the bench dramatically in his direction. He claps him on the shoulder, almost hard enough to pop it from its socket.

“You didn't deserve that,” he says.

Kraglin knows what he's referring to. He also knows what Taserface is trying to do. He's hardly the most subtle, even if he never disputes Yondu to his face. Hell, Yondu's the only person on this crew who scares him, and if he was here right now Kraglin is willing to bet that Taserface would be plotting on the cobwebbed benches at the back of the hall, rather than brazenly approaching his first mate.

But their shared shift ended three hours back. Yondu had stalked to the bogblock to chip Kraglin's blood from his knuckles, and he ain't been seen since.

Kraglin shows Taserface the least battered half of his profile, as he clanks the mug to rest on the table and stands.

“Thanks for the drink,” is all he says, untangling from the bench one long leg at a time.

Taserface sneers. He makes to say something, do something, catch Kraglin's wrist and force him to _listen_ to his mutinous sermon. But at the last moment, he thinks better of it.

He upends Kraglin's barely-touched booze into his own tankard. The slop of liquid sounds as harsh as if Taserface had spat at his feet.

Kraglin takes that as his cue. He exits the mess, dropping his sticky bowl down the wash chute, and hustles to the infirmary. Once there he hisses and winces while Mijo resets his broken nose and daubs him with a generous helping of antiseptic, despite their dwindling stock.

She looks upset as she probes the puffy skin round his eyes. But she also knows better than to ask – just like Kraglin knows better than to bitch about unfair treatment.

And karma evidently ain't a myth, because when he walks to Yondu's room that night, following the route on muscle memory, the door ain't locked. It slides open before he can knock. And there's Yondu's on the bed, naked and reaching for him.

He doesn't say sorry as he spreads his legs and slides two fingers under his balls, parting his buttocks so Kraglin can see he's already prepped. But he also doesn't look him in the eye until Kraglin grabs his face between his hands and makes Yondu watch him line himself up.

Kraglin doesn't bother with undressing. He just pops his fly and fishes out his cock. He rubs the sticky head over Yondu's hole, making him twitch at the tease, then sinks in until the aches and pains from being on the wrong end of a pair of fists ease into pleasure.

Yondu swallows thickly. His eyes rove, taking in the new kink in Kraglin's nose, the black gap of another lost tooth that's visible when he smiles, every blood-blister and swollen bruise. He doesn't try to control the pace at all, and somehow Kraglin gets the idea that this is supposed to be _punishment,_ that he's supposed to fuck Yondu as long and hard and rough as he likes. But that ain't what he wants.

He lets Yondu bury his face in his shoulder so he don't have to keep staring at his mug. He intertwines their fingers, pink on blue, feeling the scratch of a ruined pouch through his jumpsuit and the burst skin on Yondu's knuckles from where they'd collided with him again and again. He rocks into him sweet and slow, drawing out a lingering orgasm that pulses through Yondu each time Kraglin grinds against his prostate. Yondu clings to him slack-jawed, then again when Kraglin cums. It's like he's needing to connect, needing to know Kraglin ain't going anywhere, but is unable to say the words.

That's okay. Kraglin don't need no long-fangled declarations or serenades. He's got cap'n. He's got bare blue skin to explore, and a plush wet grip round his cock. And after his knot's deflated and he rolls off, leaving Yondu shuddering at the feel of cum leaking between his cheeks, cap'n tentatively asks if he wants to stay.

Kraglin knows that whatever the cosmic storms ahead, they'll weather them. But he also knows that the 'sleeping' part of sleeping together ain't actually what Yondu wants. Not yet.

Kraglin's gone without waking besides his boss every morning of his life, bar those awful five days in the cell where Yondu'd kept himself awake (if not coherent) through pinches, pain, and sheer stubbornness. He can hold out a while longer. Or at least, until Yondu can make this offer sincerely, rather than bandying it about as a consolation prize.

He kisses him, one finger under his chin to keep his head in place. Then zips himself up with a farewell rub of Yondu's hole that makes his knees jerk together, toes curling and squeezing on air. Kraglin kisses him again, just because he can, and once more for luck, before heading for the exit.

“See ya first shift?”

“Nah. Take a day.” Yondu sounds huskier than ever, but doesn't bother clearing his throat. “Hang out here, or in a storage room somewhere. Let 'em think I've cooked you for stew."

“Mm-hm. And Quill? Yer gonna make him pay, ain't ya?”

Yondu doesn't reply. He collapses flat out instead, slick and cum smearing on sheets that ain't seen the inside of a laundry-pod since before Kraglin made first mate.

His snore is resoundingly fake. It's also whistly enough to threaten. Kraglin cuts his losses and shuts the door behind him. He listens for the grind of weighty, rusted cogs in the automatic locking mechanism before he walks away.

 

* * *

 

It's a simple job, by their standards. Locate the temple, sneak in, grab the prize without setting off too many alarms, get out, wait by the extraction point on the far side of Morag's tumored crust.

Peter fulfils the first four of those obligations.

The Ravagers don't wanna cross the Kree. Too much hassle, not enough nearby recruitment outlets to replenish the lost men. They hover out-of-atmosphere until Ronan's beacons fade, expecting that Peter will have bedded down in a cavern that ain't too near a volcanic fissure, activated his smuggler-shields, and waited the big blue bastards out.

But there ain't no orb. Ain't no Peter either. And while that's all it takes to sow the seed of suspicion in Kraglin's chest, Yondu, as usual, is a stubborn git who refuses to believe what's right before his eyes until it's thrown in his face.

Which happens approximately five minutes later.

“I feel really bad about this,” says Quill when he's ordered to fly back to Morag and rejoin the Ravager formation. “But I'm not gonna do that.”

“Boy, I slaved over this job -”

“ _Slaved?_ Making a few calls is _slaved?_ ”

“Y'know what? When my boys first picked'chu up off Terra, they wanted to eat ya!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! I stopped 'em! So you better be grateful, you stars-damned shit -”

The holo-image bursts in a sprinkle of twinkly lights. Yondu growls, a noise of pure frustration, and spins to ball his fist in Kraglin's collar. “Put a bounty on him! 40K, but I want him back alive.”

Kraglin doesn't argue. Firstly, because he understands that however many times the kid insults, hurts, or outright betrays him, Yondu ain't never gonna want Quill dead. Secondly, because... Well. He ain't stupid.

Horuz, on the other hand? Jury's still out.

“Alive? He steals from us, an' you don't wanna gut him? I knew you was goin' soft -”

Kraglin heaves an internal sigh as Yondu rounds on the barrel-bellied man, coat tossed from his arrow in a snap of leather. He threatens and snarls and claims that all he cares about is the payout Quill's nabbed from under their noses. The Ravagers are dumb enough to believe him – for which Kraglin's grateful.

He finds himself grateful for a lot of things, actually. That's odd, considering how they've just lost a sweet four billion (four billion that could've been frittered into new M-ships, repairs, rust-treatment, fitting cap'n's corridor with some non-fritzing solar panels so Kraglin doesn't keep stubbing his toe when he wanders back to his own bed halfway through a night cycle...)

But sometimes, a victory goes hand in hand with a loss. Kraglin's counting this as a win. Because Quill's finally out their lives, and he hasn't, as Kraglin had feared, brought the Ravager ranks crumbling around him. If only Yondu'd leave well enough alone. Then everything could return to normal.

Is it weird for Kraglin to think of 'normal' as 'pre-Quill', having suffered the brat's company for twenty-plus years? Heck, that's over half the time he's known the cap'n. But the Terran's presence had introduced another element of unpredictability to the ongoing chaos of Ravager life, one that, in Kraglin's eyes at least, was neither wanted nor needed. Things'll be easier without him. Kraglin's looking forwards to it.

But first they have to put forth a token effort at capturing the kid. They track him to the Broker and – one whistle and an acquisition of a blue glass frog later – to Knowhere. It's while they're storming out the shuttle hangar, Quill having commandeered a junker craft that zoomed off into the teeming, overcrowded urban scaffold of the Celestial's eye socket, chased by two daughters of Thanos and an army of Kree, that they receive the call.

“Yondu! _Yooooon-du!_ My coordinates are 1008964! Come get me!”

Kraglin looks at Yondu. Yondu looks at Kraglin.

“This is a crappy idea,” says Kraglin. But Yondu's already sprinting for the Bridge, hollering for the navs, and he has no choice but to follow.

They haul ass to reach Quill in time. Kraglin doesn't know why they bother. While he knows better than to squeeze Yondu for details about the Ego-incident, he keeps a mental file of Useful Information, and in that file is one particular titbit that'd been bandied about when his cap'n got sloshed.

Y _'know, there's a wee chance the kid's actually immortal._

Well, either he is or he isn't. As Terrans don't survive in vacuums for more than a few seconds, Kraglin figures they'll find out.

Peter frosts up alright. But he doesn't swell, and when they snag him and his girlie in their tractor beam and drag him into their hold, he recompresses and catches his breath in the thirty seconds it takes for the ice to slough from his skin.

Kraglin raises an impressed brow. As reported by the cardiogram (the one Yondu has never switched off, which tracks Quill's vital signs on a small display in the corner of the Bridge, the icon for which is situated between Yondu and Kraglin's own) Peter's the real deal. Not even a palpitation.

Kraglin doesn't believe in gods. It's hard to, for a man who grew up on the streets and chewed on old leather strips (and occasionally other half-starved children) when he got hungry. But if he did, he'd picture them like Peter Quill – immature and foolish, too much power to know what to do with.

He stalks down to the airlock on cap'n's orders (Yondu making up some guff about needing to oversee the navs, which is code for 'I don't wanna see Quill's face just yet'). Once he's there, he finds Quill on top of Thanos's wire-thin green girl, feeding her a line about being _noble_.

He spares a moment – just a brief one – to snort. Same ol' Quill. Then he nods for the crewmen to fan out, and levels his pistol at Quill's head.

“Welcome home, Peter."

 

* * *

 

After that first unsuccessful desertion, Peter doesn't stay on ship longer than it takes for him and his new buddies (“His _new family,_ ” Yondu hisses, when it's only him and Kraglin on the Bridge, the rest of the crew having been dismissed to prepare for tomorrow's dogfight) to cook up a plan. It's a stupid-ass plan. Kraglin's sure to tell Yondu so (again, when there's no one else around to hear it). But, as Yondu reminds him, they ain't got anything better.

And so here they are. Prepping to make a fly-by on the _Dark Aster,_ to go toe-to-toe with a Infinity Stone-wielding zealous maniac, and to all quite possibly die into the bargain. There's only hours left on the clock before they breach Xandarian airspace, and Kraglin knows he should spend them catching sleep. But he's also well aware that this might be his last chance.

Same goes for every job, of course. Death is a cruel mistress; her mercies are small and shallow. Ravagers wear red coats for a reason, and on the high-stakes missions more empty leathers return than full ones.

It's hard work, dangerous work, especially as Yondu's brigade are cut off from the amenities enjoyed by the main garrison. Half the bars they walk into refuse to serve them except at arrow-point. Stakar's grudge-nursing abilities ain't to be underestimated – he'll rescind the custom of the other ninety-nine factions if it'll stop him from being associated with Yondu's. Their crew take the worst jobs, because they can't get nothing else. They run the most dangerous missions, do what other merc-bands waive as _suicide._ And they plow through Rookies at a hell of a rate to compensate.

Kraglin's always figured he'll go out without warning. Just poof, gone, dead in a blaze of engine fuel or necroblasts. Having time to prepare is a luxury. And he wants to spend it with his cap'n.

He knocks before trying the door. That's a formality he doesn't usually bother with. But tensions are high on ship right now, as the Ravagers prepare for the battle of their lives, motivated only by the promise of a pay-out and the threat of a whistle.

Yondu's bark of “enter” sounds strained. Kraglin places his hand on the biolock, waiting for the fizz of prickly electro-sensors that read the whorls on his fingertips and the creases on his palm. The door clanks open an inch, and he eases it the rest of the way, careful not to let the hinges creak.

Yondu's sat at his desk. He's got his prototype fin before him, and is plucking at the wiring with a pair of tweezers.

Well. 'His' prototype fin.

While the one inset in Yondu's skull is calibrated for him and him alone, this is made of crudely soldered _yaka-_ chunks sourced from the Kree plants that are mining Alpha Centauri's charred husk. It also, according to Yondu, can be used by anyone. Hypothetically.

When he shared that secret – and a secret it must remain, because by god, imagine if Taserface gets wind of this – he'd looked at Kraglin very intently and for a very long time.

Kraglin ain't a psychic. But he knows his cap'n better than anyone. Possibly, although he'd never claim so sober, better than himself. He knows that if anything should happen to Yondu, he'd want Quill protected. There ain't no one he'd trust with that job 'cept Kraglin himself.

So he says nothing about the cap'n requesting his head measurements from the tailor, and working the implant over a handheld lathe until it might just fit, should Kraglin ever shave his Mohawk. Cap'n don't wanna acknowledge what he's doing? He don't wanna tell Kraglin outright, that should he fall in battle Kraglin's expected to snatch this fin and keep on fighting, until everyone but Quill is dead, then accompany Yondu through the Lights of Ogord and into the unknown realms beyond? Kraglin won't ask.

He does walk over and catch Yondu's hands though, stealing the tweezers away and replacing them with his fingers. “Come to bed, yeah?”

Yondu shakes his head. “It ain't done.”

Kraglin surveys the open circuitry, the missing chunk on the top side, the little bobbles of solder that have yet to be filed smooth. “It ain't gonna be done soon neither.” _Not in time for tomorrow, and after tomorrow we probably won't be around to care anymore._ “Come to bed, sir. Please?”

Yondu chisels away at a _yaka-_ crystal for fifteen more minutes, but eventually even he has to concede defeat. He sighs, shrugging off his coat. When Kraglin pulls him closer by his crotch zipper, he's smacked away. He sucks stinging fingers into his mouth, wincing.

“Not tonight?”

Yondu shakes his head.

They might not have another opportunity. Kraglin doesn't have time to be disappointed. Next moment Yondu's curling onto the mattress besides him, clad in his underleathers, warm and smelly and heavy where he kicks a leg over Kraglin's hip.

He doesn't turn his back to Kraglin – but then again, only time he does that is on the battlefield, when Kraglin's obligations are to watch it and not stick a knife in it. Yondu tucks his head in the hollow of Kraglin's neck instead, so Kraglin can hook his chin over his implant. He curls his hand into the loose fabric round the belly of Kraglin's jumpsuit, feeling where his warmth seeps through the leather.

He shuts his eyes. And while he ain't sleeping – breathing too fast, body too tense – it's something close.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Commentzzzzzz


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which there's a Zune, a whirlwind, and an Infinity Stone - not necessarily in that order.**

The Dark Aster falls, and with it Xandar's chance – all of their chances – for salvation.

Kraglin, sniping Sakaaran soldiers from the safety of his M-ship, ought to have cut his losses and gunned the throttle the moment he saw the dust cloud. But cap'n's been shot down. His ship ain't in a fit state for a getaway flight, much less a trek to the other side of the universe so they can live out full lives before this evil catches up to them. Nope, right now captain's stuck up shit creek without a paddle - unless Kraglin can save him before Ronan joins stone to earth.

He hones on the _Warbird's_ beacon – after checking Yondu's life signals, to make sure it's worth the effort. His heart-rate's hardly elevated. That's impressive for a guy who has, as Kraglin will soon discover, mown down an entire squadron. But then again, if Yondu has to break sweat in a battle, the rest of them don't stand a chance.

He asks Yondu if he's gonna hop in so they can make their getaway. He doesn't imbue his words with any particular hope – because Yondu's already striding for the impact point, scowl chiselled onto his face and eyes stony. When he's rebutted, Kraglin offers a lift instead.

He sends the _converge_ signal from his cockpit as they touch down besides the crater. Ravagers wheel and bank in the sky above. Not as many approach as Kraglin would like, but he supposes he can't blame 'em for wanting to save their skins. He takes mental notes of callsigns and designations, logging them on a list for Yondu to work his way through on the offchance they survive this. Then he follows his cap'n out onto the scorched barren soil, jogging through the wreckage after him.

The _Dark Aster_ hadn't ploughed into Xandar at terminal velocity, but the sheer size of her would make for an impressive hole in the earth whether she'd been descending at seven miles per hour or seven hundred.

Kraglin and Yondu's boots slide through loose shale as they make their way into the crater. Rocks pulverized by the percussive force of the impact skid under their feet, along with shrapnel: clumps of metal and glass, superheated into tortured shapes that Kraglin's brain keeps trying to project faces onto.

Ahead of him, Yondu fills his lungs with smoke. He bellows to the creak of swinging hullplates and the distant wind: “ _Quill!_ ”

There's a lot contained in that word. There are also a lot of Ravagers straggling down the hill after them, watching their cap'n like he's lost his mind.

“We're here for the orb, ain't we?” Kraglin hears one whisper. “Why we worryin' bout some deserter?”

Ain't that the question for the ages. Kraglin knows the answer. _N_ _o son should die before their father._ But if the Ravagers had laughed at Quill for spouting nonsense about _family,_ stars-know what they'll do should Yondu explain why he's scanning the _Dark Aster's_ crumpled bow with something approaching desperation.

“Quill! Dammit Quill! You alive, boy? Hey, Tullk. You see his vitals?”

The signal takes a solid minute to reach the _Eclector,_ and another to bounce back down _._ The atmosphere is thick with smoke. It pours from the compacted remains of the Nova Cruisers, and the necroblast-shredded M-ships, and the _Aster_ herself. There's a half dozen different alarm messages being broadcast on every network. Any Cap'n trying to have a conversation with their Quartermaster is doomed to lagtime and serious interference. But, after much crackling of static from the transmitter and loud swearing from Yondu, Tullk's tattooed mug wobbles to life on Kraglin's datapad. He holds it out to his cap'n before Yondu can start on the Vogon cusses.

“He's fine, boss. Heart goin' like a spooked Skrank, but it ain't about to stop, far as I can tell.”

Yondu grabs the pad, chipped nail biting Kraglin's knuckle. They've both suffered worse scrapes. Kraglin doesn't bitch and Yondu doesn't apologize, and when Yondu gives the pad a shake and a smack the fizzling image gains definition. “What about his position? We got enough ships in orbit – think ya can triangulate?”

“Yeah. Might take a moment, but -”

Kraglin's eyes bulge. “Cap'n,” he croaks.

“Not now. Tullk, you get me dem coordinates, or I punt you from an airlock next time I'm on board. Goddit?”

“Cap'n.”

“I said _not now!_ Tullk, how long's this gonna take?”

But Tullk's jaw has dropped too far to answer. He's staring at something off-screen, a readout that highlights his face in vibrant purple. “Boss,” he says faintly.

“ _What?_ ”

Now ain't the time to complain that Yondu fobs off his first mate but listens to his quartermaster. Kraglin stares over his shoulder, to where a writhing, turbulent ball of thunderclouds, lightning, and eerie violet smoke is contained within five solid meters of Xandarian soil.

The whites are visible all around Tullk's eyes. The brightness of the spectacle makes them glow pale lilac.

“Boss, you might wanna get runnin'. Readings say thas an Infinity Stone.”

Kraglin doesn't need to hear more. He squints at the top of the crater, towering twenty meters above and wreathed in ash. He calculates the distance, the struggle of the climb over loose ground, the seconds it'll take them to prep for emergency take-off. And he finds them wanting.

“We ain't gonna make it,” he says.

Yondu sets his gaze on the raging sphere that's engulfed his pet Terran. He nods, and angles his descent accordingly.

The other Ravagers follow. Kraglin doesn't know if they're suicidal, confused, or just shell-shocked to the point where they'd rather obey orders than be left to fend for themselves. Now ain't the time for an employee survey though. He scurries after Yondu, lanky legs threatening to be dragged apart by the moving sediment, and catches his wrist.

“Whatcha gonna do?”

“What d'you think.”

If they were alone, Kraglin's response would be 'something stupid'. But he's so used to curtailing snark when there's crew around that he can't shake the habit, even when they're standing in their graves.

Yondu glares at the fingers that've closed around his arm, a knobbly white cuff. He yanks himself free with a grunt and a glare that informs Kraglin that should he try such a thing again, Yondu'll survive death-by-Infinity-Stone just so he can put him in the ground personal-like.

“C'mon,” he grits, soles crunching and squeaking over glass and chipped stone. The smoke is getting thicker, and now Kraglin can _hear_ the condensed tornado: an unearthly, unheavenly, otherworldly screech. Every muscle in his body rebels. Even his hair seems determined to drag him back. The wind blasts in his face and scrapes his Mohawk along his scalp, wrenching at his beard like it's trying to wax him.

 _Get away,_ sings his mind. _Run, run, far away. Take your cap'n and run._ And although logically he knows it wouldn't matter – running won't save them, not so long as they stand on Xandar's crust – a part of him still yearns to listen.

But Yondu isn't leaving. Not without Quill. And therefore, Kraglin ain't leaving either.

For a moment, as they reach the crowd of sobbing civilians who watch the pulse of the lightning-ball from afar, wind whipping dust into their eyes and tears from their faces, Kraglin wholeheartedly hates the Terran. This is all his goddam fault. If Quill hadn't nicked the orb, they could've sold it onto the highest bidder and been done with it. But _no._ Quill had to discover what was inside it. He had to _save the fucking day_ and drag the rest of them down with him. And now he's most likely dead, but until Yondu sees a goddam body he ain't gonna go.

...Only wait. Quill won't be dead, will he?

Kraglin knows he risks a whistle when he snatches Yondu's wrist again, preventing him from storming over into the thundering ball of energy and death, grabbing Peter by the ear, and dragging him out to yell at for being so damn reckless. But he does it anyway.

“He'll be fine, sir,” he says, out the corner of his mouth. “Immortal, remember?”

But just because Peter can't die, doesn't mean he can't be hurt. And it certainly doesn't mean Yondu can't worry. By the time the swarm of purple clouds dissipates, revealing three idiots holding hands with a rat and a twig, Yondu's almost vibrating. Luckily, the rest of the Ravagers have their attention on the aftermath of the battle – the pile of dust where an Accuser had been standing not a moment before, the lingering purple glow, and the containment orb hooked to Peter's belt.

Yondu opens his mouth. Shuts it again. Steps forwards. Steps back.

Then he comes to a decision within himself. He draws himself up, sets his shoulders straight, plasters on his ugliest grin, and saunters down the last incline, greeting Quill-&-co. with mocking applause.

“Well, well, well. Looks like y'all survived. But we got some business to conclude, before all the nookie-nookie starts.”

Quill doesn't look surprised to see them. Doesn't look all that happy either. He still makes a gambit, as he's been taught, but it's far from confident. “Yondu. Listen. You gotta give the stone to the Corps.”

Kraglin smirks as his cap'n stops before the Galaxy's self-proclaimed Guardians, grubby blue hand held out. “I may be pretty as an angel, but I sure as hell ain't one. Hand it over, son.”

Quill probably thinks that last word is sarcastic. Or that the captain's trying to coax his unruliest crewman into compliance. He doesn't hear what Kraglin does – compounded worry and fear, broiling away under high pressure.

Like magma under tectonic plates, the only time sentiment reaches Yondu's surface, it's volcanic. Yondu clamps down on it before the explosion. He doesn't allow himself to drag Peter into an unrequited hug, or ruffle his hair, or smack him and shout because _how could you sacrifice yourself while I'm watching._ There's only his crooked grin, and his outstretched palm.

Quill sighs. He deposits the orb too fast, like he's trying to assuage his guilt – or ignore the “You can't!” from Thanos's green chick. He turns away before pink fingers graze blue.

“Don't open it,” he warns over his shoulder, because apparently his Terran heart makes him _worry_ about the assholes who just robbed him. “You know that, right? You've seen what it does to people?”

Yondu chuckles, sealing the deal with a nod and a point. Then he raises one hand, the signal for Kraglin to direct the crew back to ship. The Ravagers fall out. As they retreat, Yondu tosses his arm around Kraglin's shoulders for a single elated squeeze – the most contact they ever allow themselves in public – and hisses to him “Tracker. In whatever's left of Quill's ship. Hide it real good, y'hear?”

Kraglin's already fingering the self-camoflaging bead in his pocket. “Right you are, sir,” he says.

“Good.” Yondu crushes him into his side one last time, Kraglin's willowy body bending around him, then sends him on his way with a shove and a grin. “Orb's ours, galaxy ain't destroyed. I'm gonna sleep well tonight.”

He doesn't add _Quill's alive_ to that little list of Things To Be Thankful For. But Kraglin knows he's thinking it.

 

* * *

 

Yondu doesn't sleep well that night, because there ain't nothing in that orb but a trolldoll and shattered dreams. And Kraglin, for the first time in his life, is truly, genuinely _angry_ with him.

“How're you laughin'?” he spits, pacing back and forth in Yondu's cabin – sixteen square feet where he's allowed to snarl and growl and make his opinion on these matters known.

There's a reason he rarely utilizes this privilege. Yondu finds his rage hilarious. He tosses the gonk from hand to hand, sometimes catching it by its pudgy lil' plastic body and other times by the hair, and chortles harder than ever.

Kraglin would hit him, if it'd get him anywhere other than dead. Or with a week of bog-scrubbing duty, which is worse.

“Cap'n,” he says, stalking to the bed and putting his hands on either of Yondu's shoulderplates, boxing him in. “You can't laugh this off. Thas four billion units down the drain, cause of Quill. Crew won't stand for it. Heck, _I_ won't stand for it. You understand me, sir? This time, Quill's gotta pay.”

Yondu sobers long enough to glare. “Says who?”

“Says me! Says Taserface! Says everybody!” Kraglin ain't dumb enough to shake him, but he's certainly tempted. “You can't let the brat get away this!”

“Oh yeah?” Yondu's eyes glint, ruby and dangerous. “Who's gonna stop me, Kraggles? You? You gonna start a mutiny, take the prosthetic, name yerself cap'n?”

Kraglin sighs. He loses his grip on Yondu's shoulderplates, the heavily treated leather as smooth as an ammonite shell. He pinches his nose, other hand propped on his hip, and shakes his head.

“This ain't gonna end well,” he says. Yondu's scowl doesn't lessen any. But buried under that projected irritation, there's acceptance. “And you know it. C'mon boss. Kid ain't worth this. He's just some Terran.”

“He's _my_ Terran,” Yondu corrects, as if that makes all the difference in the galaxy. Kraglin supposes that to him, it does.

 

* * *

  

“He'll be back,” Yondu tells the crew as they gather before the next dangerous, understaffed, and underfunded job for a much-needed pep talk. He's bigged himself up: standing on his chair so he towers above Ravagers who normally dwarf him, voice booming back from all sides of the hangar like he's dictating to a full auditorium. “Ain't the first time Quill's run away from home, won't be the last. But he'll be back, and then we use his fancy-schmancy Nova credentials to walk right into that vault an' steal the orb again, along with all the other expensive shit they got stashed there. This's the pragmatic option, see? If ya want full bank accounts, we gotta let Quill live.”

Taserface scoffs and mutters “Sentiment” into his beard. But he says it quietly, and Kraglin decides that's a problem that can wait until their faction's bank balance is back in the positive numbers. Yondu lifts a closed fist, one boot propped on his chairarm while the other scuffs his seat.

“Ready boys?” he roars. The _yeses_ that resound back at him ain't as enthusiastic as they used to be. But they're still there, and that's what matters. Yondu doesn't let the lacking volume temper his wily grin. “Awright! Les go make mint!”

The airlock hatch, clamped onto the side of the schooner whose engines they'd knocked out of commission minutes before, reels open. The Ravagers charge: a sea of swarthy leather. Yondu leads them, dodging plasma bolts and necroblasts with a gigantic smile eating up his face. And Kraglin's right by his side where he belongs, popping any who avoid the sizzling pass of Yondu's arrow before they can retaliate.

Ain't the same without Quill there too. Even Kraglin admits it. But Quill's chosen his own path, and if cap'n wants to believe he'll return to them, Kraglin ain't gonna contradict him - nowhere but in the privacy of his mind.

 

* * *

 

As the collective Ravager kitty is woefully thin, and they're in desperate need of money to cover costs for repairs, new recruits, and all those fiddly little necessities like _food_ and _water_ and _working oxy-generators_ , Yondu's elected to donate his cut to the cause for as long as it takes 'em to get back on their feet. It's a necessary sacrifice, and probably one of the main reasons why he has yet to be lynched. But it brings new problems with it - ones of an unforeseen nature.

Cap'n ain't used to budgeting. And it shows - Kraglin has to manually steer him away from the trinket stalls. At least Yondu's a good enough pickpocket that he can make away with anything that ain't locked behind a biometrically coded forcefield, so he doesn't have to go whinging to Kraglin for money.

Or at least, not often.

They're sauntering through a market, waiting for the buzz of their wristpieces that signals their client has arrived. Kraglin hears the tell-tale sharp inhale and “How much?” that means Yondu's set his eye on a new shiny. Sighing, he turns around, ready to begin the delicate process of prying him away – only to find Yondu not pouring over overpriced tourist frippery, but a messy junk stall, littered with botchy old tech from every corner of this galaxy. There's even some from the galaxy next door.

One lil' plastic rectangle stands out. There's a word written on it in a language that's compatible with Kraglin's translator chip, but seeing as he never learnt how to read basic Xandarian, it doesn't do him much good. He tips his head sideways.

“Whassat say?”

“'Zune'. S'in Terran.” Oh no. Yondu twists to smile at him, eyes as big as his grizzled face allows. “Can I borrow some units?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I love all my followers. Each and every one. And because I can't say it enough - any fanart is welcomed, no need to ask! You also don't need to ask if you wanna rec this fic on tumblr, etc. Quoth Nike and Shia Labeouf, _Just Do It._**


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which the guys fall asleep together and everything's cute and fluffy and happy, and the author lies.**

“I can't believe you don't got savings, boss.” Kraglin's been grumbling since they set out for the rendezvous. He's slouching so that he and Yondu look to be of a height, and scraping his toecaps through the dirt. The Zune is safely stashed in Yondu's inner coat lining. “What're you gonna do when you retire?”

Yondu looks at him like he's stupid. “Retire? Me?” Then, with suspicion: “You callin' me old, Obfonteri?”

Kraglin's mouth twitches. “No sir.”

“Good boy.” The casual praise makes his innards squirm – especially when Yondu does a hasty three-sixty, scanning for red leather. Once he's assured that the rest of the Ravagers are wreaking havoc on the far side of the station, where the whore houses and gambling dens congregate, he whispers in his ear: “I'll pay ya back tonight. Good cap'n never leaves debts.”

 

* * *

 

Yondu's methods of remittance leave very little to be desired.

He arranges Kraglin on his deskchair: arms on the rests, hands guided to clutch the metal so they're not tempted to grab Yondu's hips. Once assured Kraglin's gonna keep them there, Yondu slowly – very, very slowly – shifts down to kiss the hair that trickles along his abdomen, getting thicker and muskier in proximity to his cock.

He doesn't suck it. For which Kraglin is relieved, because he doesn't think he'd have held on long enough to keep from cumming the moment Yondu's lips crested his tip. If Yondu ain't fond of giving blowjobs, Kraglin doubts he'd enjoy getting a facial without warning.

Yondu nuzzles him instead, like a feline leaving its scent mark. His nose bumps Kraglin's knot, and he pins the fat weight of the cock above to Kraglin's belly while he slurps a hairy bollock into his mouth.

Kraglin can feel each threat of a tooth. He moans as Yondu laves the hair, slicking the wiry fuzz down. “Cap'n...”

“Kraglin,” Yondu mimics, round his mouthful. It comes out mumbled, but given what he's holding between his lips, lavishing with tantalizing pulls of suction and rolls of his tongue, he can be forgiven. Kraglin wants to grab his head. Wants to hold him there, while he grinds his balls on Yondu's face, or slips his cock between his teeth. But there's trust being offered – a trust that's very, very rarely extended, even after all the years they've fought and fucked together. Kraglin can't, won't, break it. He makes do with clenching his fists until his nails carve slices across his lovelines.

“ _Cap'n_ -”

The implant between his legs is the brightest light source. When Yondu rolls his head up to smirk at Kragllin, gathering both balls together with a loud slurp that almost has them emptying, the red glow tints his skin maroon. The staples holding his pouch together glint iridescent, in a metallic sort of way, and Kraglin can tell by the creases around his eyes that he's smiling.

And dammit, but Kraglin needs to be inside him.

“C'mon up here,” he slurs, moving his hand from the chairarm to pat the thigh by Yondu's cheek. “Want ya to ride me silly, boss.”

Yondu eyes his fingers like they're the legs on a particularly repulsive species of space-spider. But when Kraglin relocates his hand to its previous position with a mumbled apology, he decides it's in both their best interests to humor him.

He climbs aboard, hole dry but soft from regular use. Yondu squats so it splits over the very tip of Kraglin's cock. Then he pauses. He glances down, grin growing as he absorbs Kraglin's reactions. The jerk in his hips, the quiver in his chest, the spasms in his thighs as he resists the urge to fuck up into that tight, velvety little vice... Yondu logs them all. He smirks the whole while as Kraglin shudders beneath him, trained not to thrust until he's given the order.

“Suck on yer fingers.” His drawl is thick and gravelly. Kraglin, near whimpering from the promise that kisses his cockhead whenever Yondu breathes, obeys. He almost chokes in his eagerness. Yondu, chuckling, draws them from his mouth, saliva-strings stretching between the dirty nails and Kraglin's tongue. He turns them so their coating glistens in the gleam of his implant, the same light bouncing from his bared silver teeth. “There we go. Now give yerself a stroke, and I might let you put ‘em in me.”

Kraglin struggles to grip himself. Or rather, he struggles to slot his hand through Yondu's thighs without giving into the urge to squeeze them, or drag him onto his cock by the buttocks. He latches onto his prick like he's clutching a life rig, squeezing tight enough to bunch the skin, whining as he starts his sedate pump. He keeps his eyes locked on Yondu's, ready for the next command.

Yondu stays where he is, more imperious than a scarred and naked blue man crouched over a dick has any right to be.

“Faster, boy.”

Kraglin could argue that he's well into his forties, Yondu far beyond. But he's too busy rocking his hand over his cock, squeezing towards the tip like he's trying to milk it. Yondu's sat so his asshole unfurls round Kraglin's head, engulfing it just to the fleshy bulge. The top of Kraglin's fist bangs against his cheeks at the top of each stroke, and he knows from the way Yondu's incisors snag his blue underlip that he's enjoying it. “Thassit. Now...” He glides down, thigh muscles quivering as they take the strain. It's only by a fraction of an inch. But that fraction is a fraction of friction; friction and gloriously soft muscles, which clamp and pulse around Kraglin's prick.

He pants, open-mouthed and ugly. When Yondu presses forwards to rub his own cock across Kraglin's bellyhair, and hisses “Cum” against his mouth, Kraglin does so with gusto.

 

* * *

 

While Kraglin waits for enough blood to evacuate his knot that he can make it to the door, Yondu slumps onto the bed. Grabbing the Zune, which has pride-of-place besides his arrow on the one shelf that's free of clutter, trinkets, and dust, he pops a bud in his ear. He sets the track to something quiet and melodic, fumbling with the unfamiliar screen and almost putting his thumb through it as he jabs minuscule Terran letters. Once he's got the music going - by fluke, most likely - he catches the beat with the ease of a born whistler, foot tapping the pelts.

Then, after a moment's hesitation, he holds the other bud out to Kraglin.

Kraglin looks between him, his pile of clothing, and the door.

“Uh. You don't want me to...” He gestures, wordless. Yondu waggles the headphone enticingly.

“Five minutes can't hurt.”

Kraglin would like to retaliate with _one night can't hurt_ , but he knows better than to push his luck. He hauls himself off the chair, yawning, arms raised in a full-body stretch that makes him look like he's being elongated on a rack.

He ain't the prettiest of things. No meat over his bones but plenty of hair. He's scrawny as an eel and about as smelly. But despite his claims to the contrary, Yondu ain't no angel either. Their brands of ugly fit together, just like Kraglin would fit nicely around the curve of his cap'n's back, if Yondu'd ever let him lie there.

He makes do with falling sideways across the pelts, his weight not enough to make Yondu bounce. He pops the earbud into place, worming a leg under Yondu's so that there's a long line of contact, and listens to the strange Terran-music that fills one half of his head.

“Whassa 'Scaramouche?'”

Yondu shrugs. “Some Terran fad, I'll bet. Whassa 'Fandango'?”

“Sounds tasty.”

“Hm.”

They lay until the music dwindles – Kraglin likes how it slows towards the end, winding towards a natural conclusion, although Yondu insists that the prior passage of heavy guitar riffs would've made for a more dramatic finale – and the next track starts. Listening to translated music is odd. Rhymes rarely survive, except coincidentally. But the rhythm and the beat of the instruments can't be jumbled by their neck-chips. By the last chorus, they're both humming along.

“Born to be wiiiiiiiiiilllllld -”

“Please boss, never sing again.”

Yondu rolls onto his stomach. He unpins the earbud so it doesn't wrench out, and delivers a hard poke to Kraglin's ribs as he wriggles the little plastic bead back into place. “Yer just jealous that the Zune's for the kid and I didn't buy you no presents.”

“Technically,” Kraglin says, resting his chin on his bent elbow with poker face at the ready, “I'm the one who bought it, sir.”

“Hm.” Yondu twirls his finger through Kraglin's chest hair, twisting until the roots sharply protest. His smirk's sly, veering on a leer. “You sayin' you didn't get yer money's worth?”

Kraglin smirks right back. Then scoots away when a palm weighs his flaccid cock. “Uh-uh. Boss, we're way too old to be going all night.”

“Says you, ya spritely young whippersnapper. Don'tchu wanna relive the glory days? I seem to remember _three moments each_ bein' a good target...” He strokes him with one nail; up, down, up again; a consistent and infernal tease. Then, when that wins a shudder, and Kraglin's abdominal panel tightens to the point where he can see individual muscles, Yondu treats him to a generous grope. Kraglin shoves him off with growing desperation.

“I'll die. I'll literally die. Then you'll have to promote Taserface, and he ain't gonna be nearly so fun to fuck.”

Yondu sniggers. “Speak for yerself.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah, ew,” says Yondu, after pausing long enough to make Kraglin squirm. He laughs at the expression on his face, flicking his nose with a hard-nailed blue finger. “You're imaginin' it, ain'tcha.”

Kraglin has grimaced so much in his life that it's probably given him wrinkles. But hey, Yondu's starting to resemble a blue raisin. As first mate, it's Kraglin's solemn-bound duty to catch up with him. He can't remember what not wanting to grow old with anyone is like. “I might need to use yer bathroom to throw up in.”

“Think how much that beard'd scratch..." Yondu shudders. "D'you think his dick's as scarred up as his face?”

“Oh by Thanos, _stop._ ”

“Stop -”

“ _Sir._ ” Kraglin sounds so petulant about it that Yondu rears back to guffaw, tugging both their earbuds out along the way. Kraglin crosses his arms. But he can't stay mad at his cap'n. Not when they're both naked and caked in dry sweat and worse, and definitely not when Yondu's laughing.

“I'mma use yer shower,” he says, feigning a scowl as he swings his legs off the bed. Yondu nods, propping the Zune on top of the pillow where they're unlikely to forget about it and accidentally sit on the damn thing, before pushing up and crikking his neck to either side. Kraglin glances back at him. “Uh, sir? You comin'?”

“Hell yeah.” He scratches between his asscheeks. Kraglin snatches a glimpse – just a glimpse – of a plush navy pucker, dribbling seed. Despite his earlier claims of impotence, heat tunnels towards his crotch. “This's startin' to itch.”

Yondu's standing with his back to him. That's rare. But he seems comfortable enough, so long as there's the whole expanse of a mattress between them. He wears his lash-stripes and slumping blue muscle with the same confidence with which he wears his captain's coat. When he turns, he finds Kraglin twisted at the waist to watch him. He's caught before he has chance to look away - but if the saucy grin and wink is any indication, Yondu doesn't mind. “Plus, there's soldier pills in the cabinet if ya really can't get it up.”

Kraglin prays the poor lighting disguises how pink his cheeks are beneath his beard. “No thanks, sir. I think I'll manage.”

 

* * *

 

He manages.

 

* * *

 

 He also wakes up besides Yondu. Which is lovely, for the precise nought-point-three-five seconds before Yondu starts screaming.

Kraglin reacts, as is natural, with a loud and manly shriek of his own. He flails, panicking for the second it takes for him to process that he's caught in the grasp of a sinfully supple bilgesnipe pelt, not a fluffy interdimensional monster that's crashed into their ship from the starless void beyond Galaxy's Edge. Then and only then does he process that the noise – a harsh crack of sound, raw and pleading – emanates from the body besides him.

The sweating, twitching, shaking body, which clumsily kicks when Kraglin grabs his shoulder. Yondu's a writhing mess: teeth snapping on air, hands clawing. Kraglin can't get a grip on him, and when he sees Yondu's lips purse, the chatter of non-translatable clicks cutting off in pre-whistle preperation, he acts on self-preservation.

He wrestles him belly-down, and shoves his face into the pillow.

“What the hell, boss? It's me!”

Yondu goes limp.

Suddenly, awfully limp.

God, he hasn't held him there long enough to suffocate, has he? Kraglin removes his hand. The cold sweat on his palm leaves a clammy print on Yondu's implant. He checks Yondu's back. Nope, he's breathing. Faster than Kraglin's ever seen, ribcage expanding and contracting like a hummingbird's. The air rasps audibly over his vocal cords, each exhale laced with a hushed whine, although the sound is pushed more through his nose than his mouth, which is stuffed with unwashed artificial cotton.

And why hasn't he thrown Kraglin off yet?

He could, Kraglin knows. Cap'n don't need to fight hand to hand, what with his arrow and all. But it's never wise for a Ravager boss to lose shape. He's faced off with Kraglin more times than either of them can count, in the training rooms that stuff the galleon's upper flank like the hexagonal chambers in a beehive. And without the aid of his knives or his guns, Kraglin usually loses. Captain ain't little, even if he's on the short side: he knows how to use his center of gravity, and most of the time when Kraglin charges he finds himself flipped neatly over Yondu's shoulders by his own momentum.

“Boss?” he repeats, quieter. Then, when that fails to get a response: “You fall asleep again?”

Still no answer. Kraglin sits back on his haunches, from where he'd knelt over Yondu's thighs to pin him. He releases his captive arm slowly, watching for the preparatory hints of a right hook.

“Boss. Are you okay?”

The stutter of his ribcage slows. Yondu waits until he can breathe without whimpering. Then he lifts his head far enough to spit words rather than pillowcase.

“Get out.”

“Huh?” Kraglin blinks down at himself. He realizes their positions, and the unspoken rule he's just broken, and swears. He rolls off Yondu, cussing quietly under his breath - “Flarkin' hell, fine krutarkin' job ya made of that, Obfonteri,” - and holds his hands out placatingly, open and up in universal surrender. “Sorry sir. Know you got, uh, a thing about. This.” Yondu glares. Kraglin removes his foot from his mouth and starts again. “I just didn't want ya to whistle me through. Thas all. Didn't mean nothin' by it.”

“I said get the fuck out.”

“I mean sure, your call sir. Just want ya to know. Wasn't tryin' to hurt ya -”

He's making his way for the edge of the bed, but apparently it's not fast enough. Yondu heaves himself upright in an explosion of blue skin and crackling energy, crouched by the headboard. He's as far from Kraglin as he can get without leaving the bed– _the high ground,_ Kraglin's mind fills in. His lips have peeled back off his teeth, all the way up the gum, and his eyes are red slits: hateful and fierce and more furious than Kraglin's ever seen them. And, most disturbingly of all, shiny with moisture.

 _Just anger,_ Kraglin tells himself. _Boss's just pissed, that's all._

Certainly, Yondu'd like to pretend so. He whistles. The arrows hovers wasplike at his shoulder, a red-trailing promise of pain.

“Get the fuck out before I make you, Obfonteri.”

Kraglin's bladder shrivels. He's always been secure in the knowledge that Yondu won't kill him. Punish him? Sure. Make him wash the outside of the observation-window after they've flown past planets like Terra, who ain't yet learnt how to recycle biomatter in their spacecraft? Occasionally. But actual murder? That's off the books. Yondu doesn't trust easy. And while Kraglin's skillset is replaceable, the assurance that he won't gut the cap'n and take his place at the first whiff of an opportunity is anything but.

Right now though? Yondu looks angry enough to forget that.

Kraglin backs away. He stoops to pick up his jumpsuit, eyes on the arrow, watching it revolve to Yondu's whistle.

“I'm goin',” he says. His hands shake as he pulls the shoulderplates over his thin back and zips up the boots. “I'm goin', sir. S'okay.”

He doesn't know whether it's because Yondu's offended that Kraglin would even _attempt_ to reassure him, or if he's just lost patience. But the next moment, his whistle rises. It's a chromatic gliss, ending with a shrill peep that has the arrow stabbing for Kraglin's head.

Kraglin bolts. He fully expects radiation to sear through him from behind - but there's only the cool gust of a draft from the oxy-generator in the hallway, and the clank of Yondu's doorlock.

It's a good thing they invested in repairs for their airtight door seals before Quill bankrupted them. Wouldn't do for every passing rookie to hear their leader screaming, as he's hunted through his dreams.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I'm not sorry but I kinda feel like I should be. Also WHEW there were so many mistakes when I first uploaded this. That was bad even by my standards. Whoops. Oh well, hopefully I've fixed the worst of them, and I'll catch the rest in the morning!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which GOTG 2 happens. Sorta.**

Quill doesn't come back.

Kraglin does. Every single night, in fact. Yondu's removed his print activation from the door panel, but Kraglin doesn't let that stop him.

He knocks. He waits. He leaves.

And so the pattern continues. Until one day, when Yondu is overtly avoiding him during their Bridge shift, and getting Gef to relay messages when they ain't twelve feet apart.

Kraglin snaps. Stupidly, in front of a crew who've been getting uppity with worrying frequency ever since the orb incident, he tells Yondu to quit it. Or, if he's incapable of being professional, to send him on a Long Distance and be done with him until his sulk's blown over.

Sure enough, after he's slouched back to his bed in the crew dorm, orders arrive on Kraglin's datapad. They're conveyed aurally, so he doesn't have to struggle through the lettering. Mighty considerate. Kraglin feels his blood pressure rising with every word. 

He'd asked for this, yes. But he hadn't asked for... well, _this._

This time, he doesn't _knock_. He _punches_. The doorpad's a tough thing. It's made to withstand drunken bashes from the rowdy post-raid victory-parties, who funnel along the cap'n's corridor when Yondu locks the main passage between the hangars and the mess hall in an effort to let the majority of his crew sleep. It can take a lovetap from Kraglin, who (as Yondu likes to say) has the upper body strength of an infant.

“So yer tryin' to kill me now!" he shouts, beating the door with the ball of his hand. "Is that what this is? Well, I got news for ya, _jackass_. If ya want me dead, you come out an' put me down with yer own damn arrow!”

It takes ten concentrated minutes of hollering (interspersed with awkward, red-faced silences, as Kraglin waits for crewmembers to pass and pretends he's hanging around outside captain's door with bleeding knuckles because that's his idea of a good time) for him to remember that an airlock seal means no sound.

“Dammit.” There's a mic outside, and a camera – prevents cap'n from answering his door to a fully charged and ready-to-deploy plasma pistol. But Kraglin wouldn't put it past Yondu to turn those safety features off when he's mad at him. “Fuck.”

There's only one option left. Kraglin thumps down. His bony ass meets the floor grills with a clunk. He rests his chin on his hands, the back of his head rolling to crush the Mohawk against the door. Then he shuts his eyes and waits for morning.

 

* * *

 

Morning arrives with a whoosh of an opening door and a boot, inserted with all due care into Kraglin's backside.

There ain't much cushioning on that backside. Ergo, _it hurts._

Kraglin flings himself upright with a yowl, spinning on his cap'n with accusative finger at the ready. “Good mornin' to you too, _sir..._ ”

“You don't gotta go to the Kree homeworld.”

“As if it ain't hard enough on me to sleep on the floor! You seen these bones? Then you gotta kick me too? C'mon boss, I've already said I'm sor– wait, what?”

“The mission to the Kree homeworld. You don't gotta do it.” Yondu's looking at him straight-on, jaw square as if he expects to take a blow to it, but is determined not to duck away. “I'll send Taserface instead. Bastard's been lookin' at me funny all week – think I oughta put him in place.”

“R-right,” Kraglin stutters. He rubs the back of his neck, where the sleep-flattened Mohawk thins to grizzled bodyhair. “Um. That's good news. For me. Not for Taserface, obviously. Thanks?”

“Thanks, _sir._ ” But he says it with a flash of a silver-capped teeth – and a friendly one, at that. Kraglin can't help but reciprocate.

 

* * *

 

They don't talk about it, because talking might lead to questions, and questions might lead to explanations that Kraglin wants to hear about as much as Yondu wants to give.

Taserface returns from his mission singed around the edges, but (unfortunately) no worse for wear. He doesn't bring back nearly as much cash as had been promised, and of that Kraglin suspects a decent quarter has been siphoned into his own accounts. But there's no way to prove it, or at least no way to prove it was _intentional,_ because Taserface and math don't mix.

He drips his poison into the ears of whoever's listening. Whispers that _cap'n's gone soft,_ that _he's takin' after Stakar,_ that _he's taking shite jobs and he don't got what it takes to lead us where we need to go._ The mission, the poor profits of which Kraglin had hoped would stand against Taserface, instead becomes a feather in his bonnet – or a splash of leftover dinner in his beard; same difference.

“Why don't'chu send him on some suicide missions, sir?” Kraglin murmurs to Yondu as they stalk through the empty corridors of another long-dead ship. Seems like this is all they do nowadays: hunt for salvage like starving dogs for scraps. “Sort our lil' problem once and for all?”

Yondu shakes his head, snorting. "Jackass would only survive.”

Kraglin wants to tell him that he ain't taking this seriously enough. Boss needs to rip away from whatever quasar's hypnotized him and come back to what's real, what's material: the _Eclector,_ the Ravagers, the lure of gleaming gold. But the true cause of Yondu's unrest remains taboo.

Kraglin can't say that Yondu moping over the continued presence of the Zune on his bedside shelf, rather than clipped to Peter's belt where it belongs, is pointless because Quill ain't never coming back. He can't ask his cap'n to please quit scouring the data-streams for news on the Guardians, when they're supposed to be finalizing contracts and sourcing clients who're willing to risk Stakar's temper by giving them the time of day. It won't be long before someone notices. Someone who's inclined to exploit weaknesses rather than abide them. It wouldn't be such a problem, if those weren't the only sort of men who answer their faction's ongoing recruitment calls.

New faces, new meat, new brains for Taserface to sink his sinuous half-truths into, sowing dissent and doubt like Celestials seed planets...

The salvage job's a bust, just like all the rest. A few members of the crew that won't be missed have already had their names scratched from the rosters, eradicated as if they were never there in the first place. It's a small sacrifice to pay. There's new meat swinging in the galley, and the men are fed. It won't sate their bloodthirst for long. But they've been living on stopgap measures years now. Even a thimbleful of peace is treasured.

Kraglin, soaking in Yondu's warmth for the five post-coital minutes he's permitted to lounge across his bed, before the need for sleep overtakes them and he's shoved towards the door, makes the mistake of thinking to himself _things can't possibly get any worse._ Which means the universe is bound to prove him wrong.

 

* * *

 

When you're watching a fuel canister be subjected to intense pressure, there's several heart-stopping moments when you think it's gonna blow.

Maybe the bolts pop out, one after another, with bangs like poppers left on a railway track.

Maybe the frame buckles slightly, metal screaming.

Maybe you hear the high rising whine as the dome bulges, mutates, loses its smooth-domed curve...

For every one of those false alarms, your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth, your lungs scrunch tight, and your guts take a swandive for your bowel. Understandably, by the time the canister actually bursts, it comes as both a relief and a anticlimax.

Kraglin has been waiting for this explosion for a very long time. He just never thought he'd be the one to light the fuse.

“Just this once!” he says, shoulders shrinking as every eye in the Ravager horde swivels to him. "Just this once, I gotta say this, cap'n! You've always been soft on Quill!”

And there it is.

Bullet: loaded. Safety: off. Cocked, aimed, and trigger pulled – a gun held to Yondu's head by his own must trusted.

The guilt starts eating at Kraglin even before Nebula takes that metaphor a step too far, cleaving Yondu's implant open in a blaze of plasma. Kraglin's close enough to feel the heat. He's also close enough to smell the sour chemical stink of burnt _yaka,_ hear the buzz of the taser and the drawn out, juddering moan before the rodent's lil' body flops over Yondu's back. A grin crawls fast as rot on a hot day over Taserface's shiny-scorched mug. But while he's aware of all these things occurring around him, Kraglin takes none of them in.

“Cap'n,” he says. Belated. Helpless. Lost.

Taserface's plants a boot on Yondu's lower back, pinning him facedown in the mulch and the leaf-litter like Kraglin had pinned him to a bed not a fortnight ago. “You called?”

 

* * *

 

Space is infinite. It kinda goes without saying. Hell, it's in the name. Only usually when you think of a 'space', you think of a hole: something constrained on all sides. Space exists in a box, in a room, between buildings, between suns.

But the 'space' that surrounds galaxies? That's drawn on a different scale altogether. Space _is_ the box, and the box is nothingness. It's endlessly dark and endlessly cold, and one day that darkness and coldness will consume everything.

But that day is not today. And Kraglin refuses to sit back and watch his cap'n die.

Rocket intervenes before he can nudge the shuttle towards them at the wrong angle and suck them into the thrusters. “Lemme,” he says softly. “I'm the best damn pilot around.”

Peter's too busy crying over the comm to correct him. Kraglin doesn't scold him for the waterworks – he'd rather find a practical solution to the problem that's slowly asphyxiating in Peter's arms, his boy's face clasped between frost-stippled, stiff blue hands. A solution like slamming open the emergency traction beam activation panel and yanking on the lever with all his bodyweight.

It's an old mechanism, rarely used. There are command consoles closer to the hatch, which are subjected to more rigorous maintenance checks – although even they fell into disrepair towards the end of Yondu's captaincy, when the only jobs that flagged up on the merc-net were those no other self-respecting band of outlaws would take. Too high stakes for too little pay, meant not enough units to afford the recommended annual rust-proofing, and not enough men armed with wire scrubbing brushes to combat the ship's steady decay.

Kraglin strains at that lever until muscles twang up and down his arms. Before he can blow a vein, big grey hands fold over his.

After that, it's a simple case of action and causation. Drax applies force. The lever bends into place. A signal is compressed into binary units and transmitted along the patchy wiring that's cobbled throughout the shuttle's inner coils, in pulses too fast for the mind to comprehend. And, in the ship's buxom behind, a hatch reels open and a beam of vibrant Bifrost-light shoots out. It catches their wayward Ravager and Guardian before they can be swallowed by Ego's death-throes.

Or so Kraglin hopes.

“I gotta,” is all he says, gesturing for the door with hands that bear imprints of the lever's rubber grip. Rocket nods.

“Go. I'll swing by the medbay.”

Medbays are marked on all ships – subtly, of course, to prevent saboteurs from hijacking them at their most vulnerable. He points to the flame that's graffitied on an empty patch of wall by a sloppy, faux-amateur hand.

“Two of these at every fork. Follow whichever looks like it were drawn by a drunk.”

Rocket bounds from the pilot's seat, Nebula swinging to take his place with mechanical ease. Kraglin spares her a suspicious glare. If she tries anything...

But he can't bring himself to care about the future. Not when there's already one daunting, unanswered question looming over them. Anyway, her sister'll make sure she behaves, once she's slept off the tasering.

Kraglin has a cap'n to save.

He could ask Peter, he realizes as he sprints past the nav relays and the empty battery ports at the back of the Bridge, into the familiar labyrinth beyond. Rocket's already vanished, while Groot has been left in Drax's care – he's probably still trying to beat him up, not that the big guy would notice.

Kraglin knows why Twig's been left behind. It's because Rocket's a pessimist – like he is. And while Groot's seen some shit, thanks to the Guardians' less-than-stellar domestic lifestyle, it's easier to watch strangers or enemies perish than see the corpse of someone you care about. Especially when you barely know what death means.

Kraglin wishes, as he ducks into a crawl-way shortcut that will deposit him besides the airlock, that he was young enough to need coddling. He wants to be sheltered from reality too. But no. He's gotta do this. He's gotta find out, he's gotta know – and he's gotta do it in his own time, so that the hope keeps him going until he reaches Yondu and his idiot Terran.

He can hear Peter yelling.

“Please, Yondu! Please! Please wake up, please cap'n, please dad, please!”

He knows it ain't long before Yondu either responds or the kid gives up. But if he's forced to listen to that outcome while he's in the tunnels, there's a fifty-fifty chance he falls to his knees and never emerges.

He wrenches the comm bud out of his ear, dropping it to the floorgrills. It skitters away from him, bouncing and rolling over irregular panels. When Kraglin sprints past, he accidentally sets his bootsole square on top of it.

It bursts like a stomped fly. Its innards squelch out in a mess of circuitry and translucent conductive gel. Kraglin doesn't look back. He convinces himself he can't hear the twitching, zapping speaker garble out a furious _“No!”,_ and he keeps on running.

 

* * *

 

On the third day, Kraglin saunters into the medbay with a tray of beastie worms he's managed to hide from Rocket.

Rocket's developed an addiction to the squidgy protein snacks that threatens to turn him into a literal fur-ball. He's also declared all cans on board to be his rightful property, following their escape from the imploding planet – claiming that it's only thanks to him that they survived. Which is, of course, a load of bollocks. Sure, he inputted the co-ordinates that would hop them to the next habitable planet without overtaxing their poor shuttle's jump-drive, and patched the engines when all those pesky alarms started going off, and needles on every console dial swung past the red danger zone into the uncharted blackness beyond.

But it was Kraglin who had the shuttle ready for extraction, and Quill who landed the final blow on his Dear Ol' Dad. Not to mention Yondu, who saved Quill's idiot life. Kraglin figures the old pirate deserves the treat, and Rocket can suck it up and share.

Yondu's eyelids crack when Kraglin slings himself onto the chair. He props his boots one crossed over the other on his captain's lap. The seat's still warm, shaped around the cheeks of Quill's ass. Goddamn Terrans and their overactive metabolisms.

“Kraglin?” Yondu sounds hoarser than ever. That'll happen, when all the moisture in your throat solidifies. “You ain't been watchin' me sleep, have ya?”

“Absolutely,” lies Kraglin cheerfully. He lifts a spoonful of the wriggly fuckers and waggles it enticingly before Yondu's lips. “Now say _ah..._ ”

Rocket ain't fixed the arrow yet – says that's next on his to-do list, after keeping the _Eclector's_ struggling engines ticking over until they can make a supply run on a spacefaring trade planet. But Yondu looks like he's tempted to whistle regardless. His flat glare could curdle stomach acid. Kraglin's surprised the Beasties don't curl up and wither right there.

“Ain't hungry, sir? More for me.” He pops the spoonful in his mouth, lips smacking exaggeratedly, and hides his grimace as they slither down. They writhe all the way, until they sizzle to rest in stomach acid. “Yum.”

“Give 'em here, you dick.”

“Nuh-uh. Sir, you know you ain't supposed to be putting undue stress on yer hands.”

That's where the frostbite gnawed hardest. They're currently bound up very fetchingly in gauze, tacked together with neon pink sticky plasters that Rocket insists are the only ones he can find in storage. Luckily, Yondu remained unconscious for twenty-four hours after they hooked him up to a ventilator. This gave the Guardians ample opportunity to swaddle him however they saw fit.

And – well. Their team are a sturdy lot. Ain't often one of them gets injured badly enough to make the most of facilities as well-stocked as these (because even when the Ravager moneypot was at its barest, Yondu'd still ensured the medistaff had equipment from at least the last astral century). Thus, this is a new and exciting opportunity for them. They've perhaps been a little overzealous.

Without opposable thumbs, the only way Yondu can remove all the lil electrodes and gummy diodes that they glued to every inch of exposed skin, is by thrashing around like a trussed baby. As his dignity's already suffered more blows over the past week than over the past three decades – being mutinied on, held captive on his own ship, almost dying to protect the boy he accidentally admitted he sees as a son, and (to top it all off) being carried bridal-style by that same tearful boy to the shuttle's medicenter, followed by a procession of solemn Guardians (Rocket had taken a video, to 'immortalize the moment', which Kraglin highly suspects will emerge when he next needs blackmail) – Yondu refuses to lower himself any further. He's spent the last day-cycle suffering their attempts at doctoring with a stony-faced stolidity, reminiscent of tortured soldiers.

And here's Kraglin, mocking him with his favorite snack, which he can't even eat without assistance. No wonder he looks like he's contemplating strangling him with his monitor-wire.

Kraglin can't stop smiling though. It's like the damn expression's engraved on his face. His cheek muscles hurt from the stretch of it. Yondu watches him out the corner of his eye.

“What's wrong, sir?”

“Yer lookin' at me like ya wanna take a bite.”

“Only out of your other end, sir. And I'm smilin' because...” Kraglin sets the bowl on the bedside table, nudging it to nestle in a coracle of wires that link Yondu to every damn monitor in the place, including those which measure functions completely unrelated to vacuum-exposure and freeze-thaw. Then picks it up again, when Yondu's tummy growls and Yondu growls right back at it, angry it's betrayed him. “Because I'm glad you ain't dead, sir,” he finishes, lifting a heaped spoon.

The smell – a warm savory umami, kinda like slow-cooked Xandarian – wafts into both of their nostrils. Yondu licks his lips. Swallows spit. He accepts the mouthful, but he doesn't look happy about it.

“Don't'chu get all gushy,” he warns, once he's chewed and swallowed and (sneering at Kraglin's brandished napkin) wiped orange juice from his chin on his bandage-mittens. “Quill sheds enough damn tears for the lot of ya. Amazed he ain't dead from dehydration yet.”

Kraglin winces. Last time he'd swung by the medbay, it had been to Quill holding Yondu's well-wrapped hand between his, sobbing shamelessly and trying to extract a promise that Yondu'd never do anything so stupid again, while Yondu looked thoroughly awkward and tried to simultaneously pretend nothing out of the ordinary was happening, tell Peter off for turning into a softie, loudly pontificate how he could've _become_ a softie under his expert tutelage, and pat the big idjit's head in an effort to stop him crying. Not the sort of scene one associates with Ravagers.

“He nearly lost ya,” he says. “He's just glad yer okay, is all. Don't be too hard on him, sir.”

It ain't often he sides with Quill. But imagining what that boy's been through – having his blood turn before his eyes from a Kindly Lonely God to a Mother-Murdering Psychopath, then being forced to watch his true daddy sacrifice himself and die in his arms? It nurtures a rare wisp of empathy in his wizened little heart.

Well, Yondu didn't  _die._ Not completely. Judging by the face he pulls as heavy Terran feet tramp down the corridor, he'd rather things had turned out that way.

“He keeps hugging me,” he hisses, struggling to sit and smacking away all attempts at assistance. “Dammit Kraglin, we need to get off this ship.”

Kraglin makes his usual promise: “Sure thing, sir. Once you've recovered.” Technically it's _their_ ship, but he suspects trying to boot the Guardians out would be much like getting rid of a space-lice infestation: i.e., possible only with aid of a flame-thrower, nerve-gas, and a strong stomach.

After they split, he and Yondu will have to start from scratch. Find a new crew, new galleon, new clients; the whole shebang. It'll be hard work, daunting work. But they've done it once and they'll do it again. It'll be easier than ever, now Stakar's given up his vendetta. He's welcomed Yondu back to the table with arms that, while not quite _open,_ certainly ain't raised and holding blaster pistols anymore.

For now though, Kraglin reckons his cap'n ought to make the most of this opportunity for a holiday, and spend some quality time with his son.

“Quill's here,” he says, nodding to the ginger head. It bobs outside the medbay door, trying to pretend its owner ain't dropping eaves. “I'm gonna head up top, make sure the rat hasn't fucked up my nav-charts.”

Yondu grabs his wrist, eyes frantic. “No – wait! Ya can't leave me alone with him! What if he hugs me again?" His voice drops into a hiss, as he clings to Kraglin's sleeve best he can without use of individual fingers. "Krags, what if he calls me 'dad'?”

“Well,” says Kraglin. He primly extracts Yondu's bandage-wrapped hands, folding them across his captain's chest before leaning to kiss him right on his snarl. “With all due respect, sir, I suggest ya let him.”

 

* * *

 

It takes a week for Yondu to be up and about – not nearly as long as Kraglin would've liked, but there's no keeping the old bastard down.

“People to hurt, shit to steal,” he says when he's asked, breezy as if they're enquiring about the solar-wind forecast. “Gotta get back in the game.”

And away from that damn hospital bed and the mind-eroding pleep of medi-machines. At least when he's up and walking, even if he ain't fully mobile around the extremities, he can avoid Quill's hugs.

Which he does so, with growing irritation, hour after hour, until he finally snaps and hurls Quill against the wall.

Well. He tries to. Quill evened out at six four, whereas Yondu peaks five ten at a generous estimate. There's an awful lot of pink Terran bulk there to be shifted, especially for a man who spent twenty-four hours in a decompression induced coma not too long ago. Quill winds up with his back to the portal where Yondu'd shoved him, mostly because he's pandering to the push. “Dad, what -”

“Don'tchu call me that, boy!”

The Bridge has one of the highest ceilings on ship, making way for the massive viewscreen. That occupies an entire wall, designed with a curve for optimum observance of dogfights. The roof is lined with hollow copper pipes, which funnel coolant around all the clanking industrial-grade nav equipment and the comms deck. Each pipe spits back the echo at a slightly different pitch. Yondu's sudden roar rings long after his jaw snaps shut, like he's hollered into a cathedral and shut the door.

Rocket pulls a face. “Harsh.”

Kraglin, plotting fuel-efficient star routes by his side, finds a place to plant his bony elbow that won't seriously hurt the little beast. In doing so, he misses the moment when Peter's face crumples, and he shoves Yondu away before storming for the exit.

That's okay. He's borne witness to most of Quill and Yondu's domestic dramas thus far. He can fill in the gaps.

“Necessary,” he corrects Rocket. Yondu turns to find every Guardian staring at him with various degrees of shock (Bug-girl), horror (Twig), confusion (Beefcake), curiosity (Thanos's daughter, who doesn't wear hats), and outright hostility (Thanos's other daughter, whose opinion on millinery has yet to be determined). “Ravagers don't got no family.”

Rocket snorts. “His comm was on. We all heard what he said to Quill out there. Ain't no take-backsies for that sorta thing.”

All the more reason for him and Yondu to scarper, and sharpish. Kraglin glances at his cap'n. He finds him staring blankly at the place Quill had just been. He doesn't like the look on his face. It only gets worse when Rocket continues, quiet but sincere, sliding off his chair to approach.

“Y'know, you keep pushing him away, one of these days he might not come back.”

Yondu's fists clench. “Shaddup.”

“Nuh-uh. You got to yell at me when I was bein' a douche. Now it's my turn.” Rocket doesn't touch Yondu – doesn't quite dare. But he pauses well within kicking range. That's a show of trust that any self-respecting Ravager would take advantage of.

He puts on a good act, but Kraglin suspects Yondu ain't had much respect for himself for a very long time. This is confirmed when Yondu lets Rocket stay right where he is, and glares at the wall until Kraglin starts calculating his distance from the fire extinguisher, just in case it spontaneously combusts.

“Say yer piece then. Like I give a shit.”

“And that,” says Rocket, claw jabbing perilously close to Yondu's boot, “is your problem, blue. Why d'you even bother to pretend you don't... y'know... _love_ your own damn kid?” His voice breaks slightly over the l-word. Yondu shudders head to toe.

“You don't know shit,” he mutters, and stalks for the exit. Rocket – daringly, very, very daringly – scrambles after him.

“I _do_ know shit! I know because I'm you, remember!”

The other Guardians are looking more than a little befuddled by this point. Yondu ain't threatened to whistle unless they stopper their ears, so Kraglin glowers at them all in his stead, arms crossed and lips curled up his gums. He doesn't like that this tiff has an audience.

“Go after him,” says Rocket, when Yondu fails to come up with a reply. “You wanna leave, you leave. But you ain't gonna burn your bridges with us, blue. I'm gonna dig my claws in, and we both know Quill's as stubborn as I am.”

Kraglin fully expects Yondu to spit in Rocket's fur and tell him where to shove his Agony Aunt impression. But Yondu only looks down at himself: his tatty old leathers, his aging and frost-scarred hands.

He nods. Rocket does too, and steps back satisfied, setting down a paw for Groot to climb. The kiddo deposits itself on Rocket's shoulder in a lil' ball of bark.

“I am Groot?”

Yondu gives him a rare small smile. Somehow, it makes Kraglin's chest contract just as much as his bigger, nastier grins. “Yeah, Twig. We ain't leavin' yet.”

Kraglin sighs. So much for getting out of here as soon as Yondu's well enough to survive a space jump. But cap'n's word is law, even after the disintegration of their faction. Kraglin settles on the pilot seat, foam poking through holes in the leather. He returns to his chart-plotting, and sneaks glimpses of Yondu's retreating back in the viewscreen, mirrored against the deep black of space.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **One chapter left - but it's gonna be a long one. Please tell me your thoughts! I love anyone who recs this fic.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which sleeping arrangements are made.**

Things smooth over, as things have a tendency to do. Peter doesn't call Yondu _dad_ (except when he's not around to freak out about it); Yondu gives Quill a hug-quota with a five-a-day maximum. They compromise, they adjust, they make the necessary sacrifices so they can keep each other in their lives. Which means, to Kraglin's annoyance, that Quill decides he has free rein to nose in on his and Yondu's love life.

“Are you sure you don't wanna share a bed?” Quill asks him, as they're walking through the shuttle's dormitory quarter, allotting cabin spaces in an effort to make Rocket quit sleeping wherever he puts his head down and Drax from passing out on Bridge and making the whole ship reverberate with his snoring. “I mean. Kraglin.”

He touches his arm to make him look at him. Kraglin does so, and regrets it immediately. He's assaulted by big blue eyes, which gaze upon him with unspeakable fondness.

“You don't have to be afraid. You don't have to hide anymore. The Guardians, they know what you mean to each other -”

Kraglin's jaw drops. “You _told them?_ ”

“What? No!” Shock banishes that mallow-soft expression from Peter's face – but only for five seconds, before the nauseating _sympathy_ and _fondness_ swim back to the fore. “They just ain't blind, is all. And. Well.” He clears his throat, gaze slanting off to one side. “Uh. If they could hear me telling him I loved him over the com, they could hear you too.”

Fuck. To be honest, Kraglin doesn't remember much of the fraught minutes before Rocket arrived with an emergency oxygen mask and a lot of thermal blankets. But of what he can recall, none of it he wants to relive – for the sake of his pride, let alone Yondu's.

“No bed,” he says, shouldering away the arm that drops across his shoulders, when Quill deems him in need of comfort. “Me an' cap'n ain't like that.”

Quill looks like he's struggling to process. "You're not together? Did I hallucinate the past twenty years?”

“Nah, we ain't... This ain't... It's just...” Kraglin's brain sifts through a thousand possible modes of explanation. And settles, surprisingly, on the truth. “He don't like people watching him sleep.”

Quill frowns. Then shrugs. “Huh. Weird.” He doesn't say anything else on the subject, and when the quarter assignations are pinned to the refrigeration-unit in the communal galley, Kraglin and Yondu are in neighboring cabins. Drax squints at the floorplan for several minutes, head tipping through so many angles Kraglin expects it to spin all the way round like an owl's.

“Rocket is expected to share with Quill? They will surely argue through the night.”

“Well, I offered to Gamora, but for _some reason -_ ”

“The reason being that last time you were drunk you told me you fantasized about peeping at me while I was changing.”

“Hey, I was severely lacking inhibitions at the time! Just because I _fantasize_ about it doesn't mean I'm enough of an a-hole to _do it_ -”

Mantis comes to pour over the draft-up by Drax's side. “I am with Gamora?”

“And if you touch me at any point, I will relieve you of your hands.” Mantis wilts, until Rocket sidles up and bumps her thigh with his shoulder.

“S'okay, bug girl. You can always move in with Blue. Bet he'd treat you real sweet.”

Drax's chest muscles inflate. “She is far too young for -”

“First,” says Yondu, pointing at Mantis, “if she's got a figure like that she's old enough to make her own decisions. Second, pass.” He catches Rocket's incredulous look and shrugs. “What? I like my space. Whas so wrong about that?”

Nebula, who's had her optics zoomed in on the chart from the other side of the galley, stomps the entire length of the hall to rip it from its moorings, scrunch it into a ball, and dramatically crush it underfoot. “So do I.”

“Eesh.” Peter winces. “Guess someone doesn't want to share with Drax.”

Drax looks taken aback. “Why would anyone not want to share a room with me? I am an exemplar cabinmate.”

“Buddy, we've all heard you snore.” Peter claps him on the back, turning to Nebula with a breezy smile. “No problemo. We'll just pop you in with me instead. And uh – Kraglin, I guess you don't wanna be on babysitting duty.”

“After twenty-six-an'-a-half years of it? Not really.”

Peter sticks his tongue out at him, which only proves Kraglin's point. “Okay. Rocket, Groot, you mind bunking with the big guy?”

“What? Three of us in one room?” Rocket shakes a tiny fist. “Just because me an' Groot are small don't mean you can treat us like we're less than a person!”

“But _that_ means we don't have enough space for everyone without moving into the crew dorms! And I'm guessing you're gonna want to fill those up. Right da-Yondu?”

Da-Yondu nods. So much for him and Kraglin leaving this shuttle to the Guardians and starting afresh. Still, at least Kraglin supposes that this way they don't have to raise enough units to buy a new galleon – or inevitably, once they get bored of honest work, steal one. Sure enough, next moment Yondu's laying down the law.

“Next stop's gonna be Knowhere. Kids, y'all can hang about until we find you a ship, or hop off when we open recruitment. But if you stay, yer expected to earn your keep. Ain't no freeloaders in my house, understand?”

“This shuttle belongs to you?” Drax stares up and over, following the swoop of thrumming glass pipes that funnel plasma to the engines. “I do not recognize it.”

“Well you oughta, seein' as ya threatened to blow it up not four months back. Quill, we done here?”

“Wait, so you're in charge again?” Quill scowls, face scrunching. “That ain't fair.”

“I saved yer goddamn hide, boy. Don'tchu bitch to me about _fair._ ”

“I _knew_ you were gonna lord that over my head the moment you had the chance. Still the same old bastard -”

“-And ya wouldn't have me any other way,” Yondu finishes, with a grin that would be winning on anyone who'd seen a dentist over the course of their lifetime. “Awright. I get my own cabin. The rest of y'all can squabble it out. Catch ya later.”

And he lifts a hand in farewell, and tramps for the door. Peter commits what would account to suicide for anyone else – he grabs his arm, almost lurching Yondu off his feet.

“No you don't. Look, you might be used to being _captain,_ but I'm leader of the Guardians!” Rocket coughs. Gamora hoists a brow. Quill, wisely, amends himself. “I mean, we're more a _democracy_ when it comes to most things. I just tell 'em what to do when we're fighting.” Drax hums and fingers his knife hilt. Quill raises his hands. “When it's in a field I'm most experienced in. Otherwise, of course, I delegate to whoever can get us out alive. Um. What I'm trying to say is, Yondu, we don't work like the Ravagers. And that means, while you might be used to setting rules when we're on board the _Eclector -_ ” He ignores Kraglin's protests that technically, they still are. “-That ain't going to cut it here. So _I_ suggest we give the spare room to Drax so no one has to suffer that racket, and _you_ suck it up and share. Choose someone, yeah?”

It would be disappointing if Yondu _didn't_ punch Peter in the face. Kraglin is, to his surprise, disappointed. He's even more disappointed when it ain't him Yondu's finger swivels towards.

“Oi, Bug,” says Yondu, while still glaring at the Terran he was fool enough to call 'son'. “Change of plan. Looks like we're roomies after all.”

“Huh? Me?” Mantis points to herself, blinking those huge black eyes. “But I'm _ugly..._ ”

“I ain't gonna be lookin' atcha. I'll have my eyes shut.” Drax's knife slips an inch from its holster. Yondu snorts and props his hands on his hips, coat flaring out round his calves. “I'll have my eyes shut a helluva lot. Plus, there's an attached wash-rack. She can do all her changin' and girly-shit in there.” Drax doesn't look appeased. Neither do the rest of the Guardians. Rocket clears his throat.

“Y'know I was only joking, right Blue? Seriously, she's way too young for ya.”

Yondu spares him a scoff. “Trust me, I ain't in the mood for defilin' flowers.”

“Ooh!” Mantis hurries over to stand by his side, bouncing on her toes like an excited puppy. If she had a tail, it'd be waggling. Her antennae make do instead, flip-flopping over her forehead. “I've never been defiled before.”

Kraglin sniggers. Drax's brows lower, and Yondu's dirty chuckle turns into a hasty backing-away. Not that he couldn't take the Destroyer, but being as he's named this shuttle the future Ravager galleon, last thing he wants is to put captain-shaped dents in the upholstery. “Cool it, Pectoral Pump. Ain't nothin' untoward gonna happen to lil' Bug here. Ain't that right, Buggie?”

Mantis looks comically disappointed. “I have never had anything untoward done to me either.”

“Pretty lil' thing like you?” Yondu whistles – but it's only to express shock. The Guardians control their flinches. Almost. Mantis alone is unaffected, simpering sweetly up at the Ravager.

“You think I'm pretty?”

Yondu squints. “Uh. You don't?”

“I'm ugly!”

“Hoo boy. I'm gonna have fun with this one.” He catches Drax's eye. “Fun in, uh, a non-sexual, platonic, friendly sorta sense of the word. Ain't that right, Kraggles? Y'know I'd never do nothin' to a lady they didn't want me to.”

Kraglin shrugs, struggling to hide his smirk. "Course, sir.”

“That's a point!” Rocket's head swings between the pair of them, eyes thinned to contemplative slits. “If you two are shacking up, why don't you share space and save us all the hassle?”

That's a good question. Kraglin doesn't say so, because after what happened on Beruit he's resolved never to undermine his cap'n in public again. But, well. If Yondu's being _forced_ to give up his nighttime solitude, why wouldn't he choose Kraglin as the person to see him at his most vulnerable? Kraglin already knows what he's hiding, even if he's never broached the conversation. Those grating, raw screams during the night cycle? They're a secret he will carry to his grave.

Only apparently, Yondu trusts some weird bug-kid who's barely old enough to fuck more than he trusts him.

He realizes he's staring at Yondu, waiting for his answer. They all are, in fact, and while Yondu ain't an aficionado at _awkwardness,_ he does a mighty fine annoyed. “The fuck y'all gawkin' at? Boy asked me to choose, I chose.”

“But why?” Quill asks, putting what they're all wondering into words. Yondu's sneer is as ugly and worn as the rest of him. The jagged line of his upper teeth is like an upside-down cityscape.

“Because _I know it pisses y'all off,_ obviously. Now go sort the rest of the rooms. Me an' Bug are turning in.” He slings an arm across her back – shifting it well away from danger-zones when Drax growls – and steers her towards the door. Mantis's smile is peppy as ever.

“Am I going to be defiled?”

“No, sweetheart. Who knows – might find yerself a pretty boy to play with on Knowhere.”

“Don't think Knowhere has many of them, sir!” Kraglin calls, and Yondu shoots him a fond flipped bird before the door reels shut behind him.

It's decided that Nebula and Gamora will bed down together – which bodes poorly for everyone, but will perhaps give them a hint of the normal sisterly relationship they crave. Peter has assigned himself Groot-duty. He welcomes the yawning little guy with a smile of such goofiness it rivals the look on his face when he's watching Yondu and thinks he hasn't noticed, when Rocket hands him across. Rocket in turn is bunking down with Kraglin. Kraglin don't much care – having one roommate instead of twenty promises to be quite a luxury. And Drax, of course, is flying solo. He looks decidedly unhappy about it.

“I don't like this,” he says, gesturing to where a new chart has been drawn up, this time with Yondu and Mantis's names side by side. “Mantis should stay with me. She may be of a disgusting and repulsive physical disposition, but I do not trust the Ravager.”

Quill draws himself up. “That Ravager is my father, Drax.”

“But _earlier,_ you told me he wasn't!”

“Things have changed!”

“They have?” Drax's shoulders slump. “Oh. I wasn't paying attention.”

“When are you ever, buddy? When are you ever.” Quill pats the nearest muscle. “It's okay. Let them try it out for one night. If they don't get on, Mantis sleeps with you – not like that!” This when Drax makes a dangerous retching-noise in the back of his throat. “Yondu gets his coveted space back, and everyone's happy.”

“Except me.” Rocket folds his fluffy lil' arms, jabbing his snout in Kraglin's direction. “Look at that nose! I bet he snores.”

Kraglin gives the tip of his beak a self-conscious rub – then remembers that he gives precisely zero shits for what anyone thinks about him besides the cap'n. “What about you? You mark your territory on any of my crap, I end ya, fluffpot.”

“Hey! No one calls me fluffpot!”

“Yeah, you two have fun.” Peter rocks from boot to boot, Groot cradled in his hands. “Just do it quietly. Kiddo's sleeping.”

It takes a helluva lot to quell a brewing argument between the Guardians themselves, let alone the Guardians and their resident Ravager. Yet somehow, the sleepy bundle of bark in Peter's palm manages to do what plasma bolts, threats of airlock ejection, and knives held to throats would fail to.

“Okay,” says Kraglin – then repeats himself in a more hushed tone when Rocket glares. “ _Okay._ Let's go sleep.”

And while confused and conflicted about why cap'n would pick Mantis ahead of him (and possibly a little jealous as well, although not for the reasons Drax assumes, because a-hole or otherwise even Yondu has standards) Kraglin hopes Yondu sleeps as soundly as he does.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Decided to split the final chapter into two separate parts, because I'm a whore for kudos.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Drax shows concern through rampant violence, Mantis can't keep a secret, and Kraglin stays the night.**

Mantis is disconcertingly quiet at the breakfast table. It spooks everyone – Drax most of all. He lets out a low deadly rumble, of the sort that portends thunderstorms, and stomps towards her and Yondu’s room.

“Aw hell,” mutters Kraglin, and scurries after. Quill flanks him. Gamora, scowling, Rocket, chortling, and Mantis, wringing her hands, all follow. (Meanwhile, Nebula exchanges glances with a yawning Groot and helps herself to seconds.) They reach the cabin to find Drax up against the portal with a freshly-welded arrow teasing his jugular. 

Quill stomps forwards. “Dammit, Yondad - Yondu. Fuck. I thought we were all playing nice!”

Yondu either doesn’t hear that slip, or elects not to for the sake of his sanity. “He fuckin’ started it!”

Drax’s snarl could make bilgesnipe piss themselves. “No, you started it! When you defiled Mantis!” 

Yondu ain’t no bilgesnipe. The security of his arrow, which rests a pinprick away from arterial hemorrhage, bolsters his bladder-control.

“I didn’t do nothin’,” he hisses. He looks like he would very much like to get in Drax’s face and threaten him properly, but Drax had evidently unsheathed his blade before Yondu woke up enough to whistle. If Yondu gets within stabbing range, arrow or otherwise, he’s likely to come a cropper.

Captain’s wearing his underjacket and pants, coat tossed over the foot of the bunk. That’s the only personal mark he’s left so far on the spartan little cubby, which had, until the Guardians declared it a cabin, been used for produce-storage. It still smells faintly of compost. But to be fair, that could be Yondu’s socks, which have been peeled off and chucked besides his boots to release spores peacefully in the corner.

Drax doesn’t look inclined to believe him. “You did something! Just look at her. She’s not right!” Mantis tugs at his arm in an effort to stop himself impaling himself on the arrow neck-first. Yondu, smirking, whistles again. That slim golden point doesn’t retreat an inch. 

“Drax! It was nothing… How do you say it? _Untoward_.” She pauses. “At least, I don’t think it was. I’m far too ugly.”

“Thas right! Listen to Bug here. I wouldn’t touch self-esteem issues like those if you paid me.”

“Yeah you would,” says Kraglin.

Yondu nods. “But you’d have to pay me a helluva lot!”

Mantis copies him, smiling in agreement. It’s a little too toothy, but she’s getting there. “Indeed! I only touched him once, and that was to stop his nightmares!”

Oh.

The smirk falls off Yondu’s face. As it does off Kraglin’s, Quill’s, and everyone else who’s witness to the unfolding scene. Drax stares along the arrowshaft to the fuming Ravager at its opposite end. “Udonta. Is this true?”

“Bug,” Yondu growls. His glare twitches to Mantis, who tips her head to one side, petal-pink lips pursed as if she’s mimicking his whistle.

“Did I say something wrong?”

Quill and co. have had their fingers teasing their holsters since Yondu’s attention shifted to their latest member. It says a lot to their lifestyle, that they’re accompanied by pistols and knives even when surrounded by allies. (Kraglin wonders where they stow them when they have to shower. Then decides he doesn’t want to think about it.) Everyone relaxes as Yondu breathes out, letting his gums roll over his teeth and pinching the creases that have flocked to the bridge of his nose.

“Bug, d'you know what a secret is?”

Mantis perks. “Yes!”

“Well, that was one.”

Deflation. Even her antennae droop. “Oh. I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

Yondu lets her stew, glowering until she wilts like a flower left under a white-hot solar bulb. Then he scoffs under his breath and turns on their audience. “You owe me one for that, girlie. As for the rest of y'all… Wanna get the hell outta my room so I can finish gettin’ dressed? Or do ya want a show? Boy’s got music…”

That gets them moving. With Kraglin’s exception, of course.

The door slides shut, almost clipping Quill’s heel. He’s practising that fine captainly trait of multitasking: shepherding Mantis along, sighing to himself as he reconciles this latest revelation with what Rocket's no doubt told him about Yondu's past, and scolding Drax in the same breath. As soon as that barrier is closed,  Yondu’s smirk transitions into a leer. 

“Y'know, that were s'pposed to be a joke. But if yer up for it… Don’t even need music. I can just whistle, and - “

“Sir,” Kraglin says. It’s a rare day when he cuts Yondu off, and a rarer one when Yondu lets him get away with it. Kraglin makes the most of the surprised pause. “Sir, you know I don’t care. You know that, don’t you?”

Yondu feigns ignorance. “Don’t care ‘bout what?”

He’s gonna make Kraglin say it out loud. Kraglin doesn’t look forwards to his nose being concaved around the shape of a fist, but if that’s the price it takes to air this dirty laundry, it’s one he’s willing to pay.

“The nightmares,” he says quietly. Watches Yondu for a reaction, ready for the first muscle-twitch that belies an incoming punch, anything. There’s only silence. Kraglin, unmoored, stumbles on: “I don’t think it makes ya weak. I don’t think it makes ya anything less than what you are.”

Yondu laughs, a humorless scratch in the back of his throat. “An’ what’s that?”

He hasn’t reminded him to call him sir for three whole sentences. This is serious. The swallow swells and recedes at the thin reed of Kraglin’s throat. “A mean old bastard who’s been chewed up an’ spat out by the galaxy, boss. Thas who you are to me. Thas who you’ll always be.”

Yondu crosses his arms. It’s better than him taking a wild swing, but only marginally. “Ain’t _that_ old.”

Of course that’s what he picks up on. Kraglin face folds into a smile. “Oh yeah, sir? Wanna come over here and prove that to me?”

He barely has the chance to enjoy Yondu’s unfurling grin before a burly blue body rams him against the door. It brings with it the reek of leather and lingering radiation – like burnt toast, only more chemical. Kraglin could inhale until his lungs burst. He presses his nose to the crux of Yondu’s neck, snuffling along until he finds an earring to chomp down on and a handful of lovely warm blue ass to grope. “Fuck. Sir -”

“Thas the general idea.” Yondu picks him up by the hips. He spins them both one-eighty, sets Kraglin down and, while he’s still flushed and stammering happily from the manhandling, walks him backwards towards the bed. The sway of his shoulders, his hips, reminds Kraglin of a snake posing to strike. It only takes a light shove of his chest to fell him; he’s set off-balance by the mattress that bumps the back of his knees.

“Ain’t this Bug’s bed?”

“Yours now,” says Yondu, which is really all there is to it. He crawls onto Kraglin, letting him feel his weight, his presence, the solid curve of muscle and meat under his jacket. This bunk’s a single – not nearly as large as they’re used to. If Kraglin lays flat his head dangles over the other side. He crunches up instead. His abdomen will be protesting by the time they’re through, but the sight of Yondu sitting over him – then, after a long moment’s thought, turning around - more than makes up for it. Or it would, if this didn't broach one of Yondu’s oldest and most strident rules.

_No doggy-style. No cocksucking. No reverse cowgirl._

Kraglin blanches. “You really wanna ride me like that? Are you sure? Y’know you don’t gotta, right? I don’t mind; y’know me, I’m up for anythin’…” Yondu looks back over his shoulder. He raises a hairless brow, which says all he needs to, and Kraglin’s demeanor changes in an instant: “Yep, you’re sure. Dammit, boss. By the fuckin’ stars, yer so dast-damned perfect. I wanna fuck you like there ain’t no tomorrow -” 

Yondu smacks his greedy hands before they can fasten on his waist.

“No touchin’,” he growls. It’s laced with a warning whistle, which has the arrow rattling in its holster. That threat’s placed out of sight and mind though; Yondu unstraps the buckles and slides the entire contraption off over his head, tossing it to the floor by his boots. “You keep yer hands behind yer head, boy. You don’t touch me, you don’t say shit. You lay there and you look pretty, and you lemme use yer cock.”

Kraglin hears what Yondu doesn’t say – _if ya don’t, I might accidentally fill the space between yer ears with my arrow_. He ain’t afraid though (or at least, no more than usual). Cap'n isn’t the safest or sanest of bedmates. The longevity of their relationship says something concerning about Kraglin’s preferences, and possibly his mental health as well. But he can’t be bothered with self-diagnosis. Not when he’s flat on his back: trapped under his cap'n, hips clamped tight between thick blue thighs.

His captain toys with his underjacket only for a second. Then he wrenches it up and off, fast before he can change his mind. Kraglin ain’t permitted to stroke the scars that corrode the muscle on Yondu’s back– so he fondles them with his eyes instead, looking his fill of each. There’s the crosshatch on his left shoulder, the tooth prints on his right. Knife-cuts and whip-strikes over every ropy muscle. The longest he saves til last: the vertical stretch of silver that runs the length of Yondu’s spine and slips coquettishly under his waistband, a runway for Kraglin’s gaze.

Yondu scooches his leather pants down his thighs. His ass bobs about and Kraglin has to choose between breaking his first rule - _hands behind yer head_ \- and slobbering all over himself. He makes the wiser choice.

Yondu notices his predicament. He tuts, a teasing flick of tongue-off-teeth that makes blood shoot to Kraglin’s groin like it’s being ejected from a plasma canon. He spins on his lap, mopping the saliva with the wadded bundle of his pants before tossing them to the floor.

Kraglin’s own jumpsuit is removed with uncharacteristic slowness. Rather than unzipping the frontispiece and climbing aboard, Yondu pushes it off his shoulders, baring his scrawny ribcage, and slides dirty nails through his chest hair until he finds a nipple to tweak. Kraglin’s still wearing his boots, and stripping him entirely would take more patience than the pair of them boast combined. He’s grateful when Yondu turns around again – after making sure Kraglin’s hands are secured. 

Kraglin grins when he checks. He’s eager to prove how well-trained he is. He wants Yondu to know that all of this - his obedience, his deference, the stiffening prong of his cock - is for him and him alone.

His interlaced fingers support his neck. They tug at his Mohawk whenever the urge to flatten his palms over the swoop of Yondu’s shoulderblades or pull apart his buttocks grows too strong. They tug _hard_ when cool balls kiss his cock, and nearly wrench out a greasy handful when those balls drag along it, enticing it to full attention as Yondu rearranges. He pulls a tube from the bedside table (“Left it there for when Bug gets her first; poor girl looks tight as a sausage-grinder”) and dispenses a palmful, which is introduced without warning or warming to Kraglin’s dick.

Yondu rides out his lurch. Kraglin whines, chest heaving and pelvis rocking in an effort to fuck Yondu’s fist. But Yondu only shoots him a smile, enigmatic as the ugliest Mona Lisa, and unwraps his fingers to plunge them knuckle-deep in the elastic blue pinch of his hole.

Kraglin groans and ruts on air. It’s unpleasantly cool against his well-wetted prick. When Yondu finally deigns to crouch over his crotch and lower himself, inch by sizzling, wonderful inch, Kraglin can’t hold back his worshipful hiss of his name.

“Fuck, Yondu…”

“No talkin’,” Yondu reminds him. His forearms quiver where he props himself on Kraglin’s hairy shins, nails biting into the bone.

Kraglin nods some more. He whimpers as Yondu takes him that final millimetre, kneeling atop his cock with his thighs outsplayed and his head tipped back so the fin and the angle of his body cut the overhead light, casting Kraglin in his shadow. His toes curl desperately in on themselves, uncut blue nails slicing boot calluses, and for a moment Kraglin thinks he’s not gonna have strength to get back up again.

But Yondu wouldn’t be cap'n if he didn’t persevere. He’s fought Ravagers and Corpsmen, and even a god (with a small 'G’, but impressive nevertheless). Watching him ride Kraglin’s dick, ass muscles clamping and pulling, trumps all those victories combined.

The fleshy blue rosette catches on his cockhead, Yondu clicking throatily at the tug. Kraglin's hands make a single, aborted grab for Yondu’s hips, yearning to slam him back down, fill him up, pierce him so deep and hard Yondu will taste how much he fucking loves him, and all those other things that Kraglin ain’t allowed to say…

He stops them well in time, and reasserts them behind his head. Like hell is he ruining this. He’s got the perfect view, as his cap'n rocks up and down his cock at a punishingly sedate pace, forcing Kraglin to savor each internal flex. And it only gets better as Yondu moves faster, spurred by the thwack of his own cock against his belly every time he rears up to Kraglin’s tip with a internal suck and a bunch of scarred blue thighs.

There’s fuck-all Kraglin can do. Like this, flat on his back with his legs sticking far over the bedside, cap'n controls the tempo of their sex, its depth, its cadence, angle, everything. He swivels over him, stirring himself open, and on the next drag up, gets his feet under him so he’s holding a squat rather than kneeling, freeing up his hands. These reach behind him, one on each buttock, spreading the meaty mounds wide.

The thruster in Kraglin’s belly revs like it’s ready for take off. Buried between Yondu’s asscheeks, his cock is swallowed and disgorged, again and again and again.

How he manages not to cum in that moment is a mystery to all involved. There’s something near-delirious about having so many sensory feeds combined – the sight of his vanishing prick merges with the lewd slap of flesh, the smell of lube and pre-cum and Yondu’s panting breath, the sensation as he’s engulfed in slippery, sinful-soft blue… 

But Kraglin holds out, against all odds. He staves off the sparks with raw-gnawed lips and squeezed-shut eyes, until Yondu sits on him heavily and squirts cum up the staples that pin his pouch closed.

Kraglin takes that as permission to follow. He grinds in with all his strength, rubbing relentlessly at his cap'n’s prostate to milk those last twitching, sloppy strings, until Yondu physically can’t produce any more. Then, at last, he lets it all go. 

It's a decent load - and that's Kraglin being modest. Not like he can help it. He's all pent up; ain’t like they’ve had a chance to screw since the mutiny.

Yondu’s head lolls and he swallows his spitty breaths one after the other, both hands pressing on his lower stomach. Kraglin’s knot fills, spurred by the clutch of the body around it, and he hears Yondu gasp as he’s stretched from the inside.

His captain leans back, every muscle juddering and spent. He teeters, then crashes at long last, like a great felled lumber-flora. 

Kraglin twists just in time to avoid being brained by a metal implant. His shoulder acts as a bony pivot around which Yondu's skull rolls. He lets it hang, chin tipped back to face the wall behind him, and _breathes_.

“Ugh. Fuck yeah. _Yeah._ ”

Kraglin wholeheartedly agrees.

The line between Yondu’s back and Kraglin’s front is almost unbearably stuffy, seeing as Kraglin’s still half-clad in a jumpsuit. Yet he can’t bring himself to grimace at the sweat that’s trickling down his calves, smeared against him by his boots. Not when Yondu’s hole fits snug to the base of his knot, and his thighs spread over Kraglin’s, crooked at the knee. Definitely not when he’s close enough to kiss.

Kraglin keeps his hands behind his head, because he ain’t been told otherwise. He cranes down, chin smushing his chest. Yondu’s eyes fuzz out of focus. There’s no mistaking their crescent shapes though, or the way his crows’ feet crinkle around a smile.

“Krags,” says cap'n hoarsely. That's Kraglin’s cue to mentally scrap his gag-order.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Hm.” Yondu rubs his nose on Kraglin’s, still gulping air. “That were quite the work-out. Think I’m gonna sleep well tonight.”

Kraglin hums in agreement. Then, tentatively, because he suspects this is a little too much happiness to hope for: “An’ if ya don’t?”

Yondu shrugs. The movement courses through him. It pulls sweetly at Kraglin’s knot, where it plugs his seed inside. Cap’n’s eyes drift shut, and, after yawning wide enough to show off his metal molars and blast Kraglin with hot stinky breath, he snuggles down so his cheek’s on Kraglin’s collarbone. “You’ll be here,” he says. He pats the other side of his chest with a warm hand, fingers slick with lube. “Where ya belong.”

“Underneath ya, sir? Because I gotta tell ya, if we fall asleep like this I’ll be suffocated come mornin’.”

A red eye opens just far enough to roll, then lazily slithers shut again. “Was gonna say _besides me_ , if we push the beds together. But y'know. Whatever flies your spaceship.”

“Why sir.” Kraglin bonks his chin off Yondu's temple. “Thas practically romantic.”

“Don'tchu start. Yer as bad as Quill sometimes.”

“Mm-hm. S'why ya keep us around.”

A snort is followed by an elbow to the belly, then a brief, sticky bout of rearranging – as much as they can while knotted together –  until they’re laying on their sides, with a pillow under both their heads. Kraglin only gets a corner of it, because the new implant is big enough that he would have dubbed it ‘compensation’ in the privacy of his mind had Yondu not just proved that hypothesis resoundingly false.

He doesn’t know if Yondu actually falls asleep that quickly or if he’s just pretending. But whatever the case, Yondu’s drawled “That’s why ya keep us around, _sir!_ ” are the last words spoken - at least until Quill bangs on the door and informs them that it's still the middle of the day-cycle, and that Knowhere's looming on the scanners, and that if Yondu and Kraglin want to laze around like old men he'll gladly take over recruitment.

Yondu jumps up, popping off the deflated knot to Kraglin's vocal displeasure, and starts rooting for clothes without bothering to shower. 

"C'mon," he says, pulling up the collar of his duster to hide where the long scar begins. "Work calls. You take the Celestial's jaw, I'll handle the eyesocket. An' Kraggles?"

Kraglin, still grumbling as he watches blue skin be eaten up by leather, looks up. "What?"

Yondu's facing away from him. But it's not because he's angry - in fact, it could be Kraglin's imagination, but the tips of his ears have been dipped in royal blue dye. "Back here tonight. If I move them beds myself I'll throw my back and ya won't be able to fuck me for a moon-cycle."

Kraglin smiles. That's motivation, if he's ever heard it. "Sure thing-"

"Sir."

"- Sir."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(I reused the line about 'besides me' because I love these dumb gay space pirates.) It's been a wild ride, guys! Thanks to everyone who comments/recs this fic on tumblr and elsewhere!**


	10. NSFW Art!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Fanart from my tumblr, @write-like-an-american!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This fic also now has an awesome, _awesome_ fanmix by Sacklunch on 8tracks! Check it out - it's called 'Stay the Night', and it's utterly glorious.**

**Author's Note:**

> **The prompt: For many years even though they were sleeping together, yondu never let kraglin stay the night. The reason? Nightmares, from his time as a slave. Kraglin finds out somehow and comfort occurs**
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